We have experienced fantastic progress in all important areas of human activity. We have never lived longer--life expectancy has more than doubled during the past hundred years--and the improvement has been even more pronounced in the developing world. Infant mortality has fallen drastically. As recently as 1950 one in five infants died in the developing countries, whereas only one in 18 dies today--this is the same proportion as in the industrialized world just 50 years ago. We are taller and healthier and get fewer infections. There are far more of us, not because we have "started breeding like rabbits, but because we have stopped dying like flies."
At the same time we have more to eat. The proportion of people starving in the world has fallen from 35 percent in 1970 to 18 percent today and is expected to fall further to 12 percent by the year 2010. More than 2 billion more people get enough to eat and the average calorie intake in the developing world has increased by 38 percent.
Incomes in both industrialized and developing nations have at the same time tripled over the past 50 years and poverty incidence has decreased. The distribution of wealth between the world's richest and poorest has decreased slightly and it is likely to be reduced dramatically over the century.
We now also have numerous consumer goods that improve our lives and make them much easier. People in the developed world have refrigerators, better housing, cars, telephones, computers and VCRs. The developing world has also experienced increases in these goods, but it is much more important that far more people have access to clean water, sanitation, energy and infrastructure.
The number of hours we work has been halved during the last 120 years, and because we live ever longer than we used to, we have more than twice as much leisure time to enjoy.
The murder rate has fallen considerably, although this has been offset by an increase in the suicide rate. There are also far fewer fatal accidents today than in days gone by.
On average, we have become much better educated, and the developing world is catching up with the industrialized world in this respect. The number of people getting a university education in developing countries has almost quintupled. All in all, pretty incredible progress.
This is not to say that there are no problems. There are. Africa stands out as the prime problem area, where African people have experienced much less growth over the past century than people in most other countries, an AIDS epidemic has engulfed parts of southeast Africa, and because of war and ethnic and political division the outlook is not rosy. But even Africa is still better off than it was at the beginning of the twentieth century, with better nutrition, higher incomes and better schooling. Things are not everywhere good, but they are better than they used to be.
The world at large, the developing countries in particular and even the troubled areas of Africa have all experienced progress. The question is whether this progress really can be maintained and improved.
