Posted on 08/28/2002 10:04:44 AM PDT by gubamyster
August 28, 2002 9:00 a.m.
Whenever delegates from countries around the world get together it is almost always bad news for freedom and capitalism. The earth summit on "sustainable development" that is currently being held in South Africa is no exception.
So far the conference has been an all-too-predictable bashing of rich nations for holding back the poor nations. The rich nations (the United States) are asked to do more to alleviate AIDS, more to reduce global poverty, more to protect the earth's natural resources, more to feed the hungry, and more to stop mythical global warming. All that was left off the list. Instead, we hear the familiar refrain from self-righteous-and-yet repressive leaders of poor nations that the U.S. with five percent of the world's population uses 25 percent of the world's resources. (No mention that the U.S. also produces more than 25 percent of the world's output — of AIDS drugs, food, vaccines, infant formula, humanitarian aid; the list goes on.)
There is an overall false message of doom and decline at the earth summit, as if the earth's ecosystem is on the verge of collapse and that human beings are worse off now than in the past. It isn't true. Sure, in some of the heartbreakingly repressed nations of Africa things are getting worse. But in the rest of the world things are almost universally getting much better — in terms of health, in terms of material progress, and in terms of a cleaner environment.
Here are some of the most encouraging trends that you will not hear about among the elite gathered in South Africa this week.
Life Expectancy: In the rich countries life expectancy — the broadest measure of health and a safe environment — has increased by 30 years over the past century. Even in poor countries life expectancy has risen at an astonishing pace. The average resident of a poor nation can expect to live nearly twice as long as his or her 19th-century counterpart. Most of humanity enjoys better health and longevity than the richest people in the richest countries did just 100 years ago.
Health: Parents should reflect long and hard on one statistic whenever they think life isn't treating them well these days: The death rate of children under 14 has fallen by about 95 percent since 1900. The child death rates in just the past 20 years have been halved in India, Egypt, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, South Korea, Israel, and scores of other nations. Almost all of the major killer diseases prior to 1900 — tuberculosis, typhoid, smallpox, whooping cough, polio, malaria — to name a few, have been nearly eradicated thanks to medical progress, most it coming from the evil capitalist United States.
Nutrition: Nutrition and diets have been improving the world over. Gale Johnson the agriculture expert at the University of Chicago has discovered that fewer people worldwide died from famine in the 20 century than in the 19th century — not just as a percentage of the population, but in absolute numbers. That is a spectacular achievement in our ability to feed the planet, given that the world population is some four times higher today than 100 years ago.
Education: The world's inhabitants are better educated than previously. Illiteracy has fallen by more than two thirds in the U.S. and by an even greater percentage in many poor nations.
Environment: Economic development is the best way to clean the environment. Poverty is the biggest impediment to clean air and water. Consider the U.S.: Smog levels have declined by about 40 percent, and carbon monoxide is down nearly one third since the 1960s despite nearly twice as many cars. Some of the most impressive advances in cleaning the air have been recorded in the dirtiest cities, including Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. Airborne lead is down more than 90 percent from 40 years ago. Contaminated drinking water killed hundreds of thousands of Americans annually 100 years ago, versus very few deaths today.
Natural Resources: By any measure, natural resources have become more available rather than more scarce. Consider copper, which is typical of metals: The cost of a ton is only about a tenth of what it was 200 years ago. There is evidence that oil — the most worrisome of resources because it is mostly burned up and therefore cannot be recycled — has actually been getting cheaper to produce.
What has been the driving force behind this miraculous progress? Three words: free-market capitalism. If only the intellectual elite and the power holders in South Africa this week would go home and deregulate their economies, cut tax rates, expand democracy, and cut government rules and bureaucracies, we could blaze a path to alleviating world poverty in a generation or two. If only markets, not governments, controlled the price and usage of natural resources, we would see a further abundance of food, minerals, and energy — enough for the entire world to share in the bounty.
The earth summit is based on a cancerous and discredited creed of limits to growth. It is insane to hope that people who believe in limits to growth will create the conditions that nurture growth. Even the term "sustainable development" is offensive and suggests that economic development and improving the environment are somehow incompatible — which is precisely the opposite of the historical record. Where there is economic development and capitalism, there is clean air and water, well-educated citizens, abundant resources and low disease rates. Where there is no capitalism, there is an abundance of these maladies.
It really is all that simple.
The only real limits to growth are created by wrong-headed conferences populated by unthinking do-gooders.
Freedom will save the planet — if only governments will allow it.
— Stephen Moore is president of the Club for Growth.
And, I might add, a raised awareness of keeping the environment clean. Free market capitalism has existed in this country for over a hundred years. Environmental concerns arose probably in the last 60. That is why the West is cleaner than the third world.
Much of this improvement is due to the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act of 1970, and (amazingly) also due to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency.
And, I might add, a raised awareness of keeping the environment clean. Free market capitalism has existed in this country for over a hundred years. Environmental concerns arose probably in the last 60. That is why the West is cleaner than the third world.
If the demand for a clean environment is a normal good, the quantity demanded will increase as income levels increase. Free market economies like that of the US increase income over time. As income increases, the demand for a clean environment also increases. A century ago when the US was a poorer country, it didn't worry so much about polution levels.
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