Tidings of Comfort and Joy: The 20th Century Produced Incredible Progress
More Material Advancement in U.S. This Century Than Previous Times Combined, Study Finds

There has been more improvement in living conditions in the United States in the 20th century than in the entire world in all previous centuries combined, according to a study released today by the Cato Institute.

In "The Greatest Century That Ever Was: 25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100 Years," Stephen Moore, director of fiscal policy studies at the Cato Institute, and the late Julian Simon, an economist at the University of Maryland, outline "heartening trends" of the 20th century, noting that the overall outlook is rosy, not gloomy. "Almost every indicator of health, wealth, safety, nutrition, affordability and availability of consumer good and services, environmental quality, and social conditions indicates rapid improvement over the past century."

The authors attribute these gains to the free society in which we live, where "the unique American formula of individual liberty and free enterprise has encouraged risk taking, experimentation, innovation, and scientific exploration of a magnitude that is unprecedented in human history." Countries that have not enjoyed the same freedoms, such as Maoist China and the Soviet Union, have not fared as well. "Repression by government short-circuits the human spirit and produces sustained periods of stagnation and even anti-progress."

"The latter part of the 19th century was an era of tuberculosis, typhoid, sanitariums, child labor, horses, horse manure, candles, 12-hour work days, Jim Crow laws, tenements, slaughterhouses, and outhouses," they write. At the dawn on the 21st century, however, life expectancy has increased by 30 years, infant mortality rates have fallen ten-fold, the number of cases of deadly diseases (tuberculosis, polio, typhoid, whooping cough and pneumonia) has fallen to fewer than 50 per 100,000, air quality has improved by 30 percent in major cities (since 1977), agricultural productivity has risen 5- to 10-fold, the average annual per capita output has risen seven-fold, and real wages have nearly quadrupled.

The authors theorize that so much progress has been made in the 20th century because of three revolutionary developments in our free society: modern medicine and vaccines, the harnessing of electrical power, and the invention of the microchip. They find that there have been only a handful of trends that have gotten worse in this century-namely, taxes have increased and the government is larger and more intrusive than it was 100 years ago. "The declinists are wrong when they say that mankind is on a collision course with doomsday," they write. The authors believe their data set the historical record straight.

"The Greatest Century That Ever Was: 25 Miraculous Trends of the Past 100 Years"