The Economic Story so Far: by Atanu Dey. “Stagnation and poverty has been the story of humanity for nearly all its existence for 250,000 years. Only in the last couple of thousand years, escape from grinding poverty became possible. And only in the last couple of centuries did a significant number of people became rich. From a world where 90 percent of the people lived in abject poverty to a world in which less than 9 percent who are in just a bit over 200 years is the most remarkable event in human history.”
The Great Fact: by Donald Boudreaux. “Economist and historian Deirdre McCloskey calls it “the Great Fact” — the humongous increase in humans’ standard of living that began about 200 years ago…Only when merchants, tinkerers and practical seekers of profit in markets came to be respected — and to be widely spoken of with respect, even with admiration — did the social status of the bourgeoisie increase enough to make membership in that group desirable to large numbers of people. And when this Bourgeois Revaluation happened, innovation skyrocketed. It’s this innovation — mad, fevered, historically off-the-charts amounts of innovation — that really is what we today call “capitalism.””
