If you believed any of the placards at various #MayDay2017 rallies, you would think that everyone is living on the brink of financial destitute and on the cusp of annihilation. Of course, this is ridiculous – these same protesters are eating their KFC meals and drinking their Starbucks lattes.
Whenever somebody tells you that capitalism and free markets are making everyone poorer, you should immediately point to this American Enterprise Institute (AEI) chart below, which used data from the World Bank.
Since 1980, the rate of the global population living in extreme poverty has plummeted from 44 percent to just 9.6 percent. And this figure continues to drop with each passing year, thanks to the adoption of markets – heck, even North Korea is starting to get better because of Kim Jong-un opening up markets.
Our planet isn’t perfect. Nothing is. If you’re searching for a utopia then this isn’t it, as economist Milton Friedman would say. With that being said, considering that we have had millions of years of actual human suffering, it is truly perplexing how much capitalism has lifted billions of people out of poverty in just 200 years.
Whenever the government gets out of the way, people flourish. This is why a socialist state with one of the largest oil reserves in the world (Venezuela) is impoverished, while a tiny country with capitalism and free markets like Liechtenstein thrives.
Things are only getting better.
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