From the pages of In Business magazine.
Ben Wattenberg, the late liberal-turned-conservative political commentator, wrote an entire book on the distorting effects of people and institutions — including the news media — that emphasize the negative. In an age of social media and clickbait, gallons of gasoline have been poured on that fire.
Of course, the reality is that negativity doesn’t tell the entire story. This came to mind as pundit after pundit reviewed the 2010s as a rather lackluster decade. Yet, as the Cato Institute’s Johan Norberg recently noted on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, there is plenty to cheer from the past 10 years:
- The United Nations’ Development Report shows that progress on income inequality is being made, as an unprecedented number of people in the world escaped poverty, hunger, and disease, and the World Bank reports that the global rate of extreme poverty fell more than half from 2008–2018. Backsliding is always possible, but the World Data Lab estimates that half of the world’s population can now be considered middle class.
- On the health front, the past decade has seen worldwide life expectancy increase by more than three years. A 56 percent reduction of child mortality is the main reason, but more people have access to potable water, improved sanitation, and vaccines, and the incidence of HIV/AIDS deaths in Africa has been cut by more than half thanks to the availability of antiretroviral therapy.
- Contrary to popular opinion, annual deaths from climate-related disasters are on the decline — to 0.35 per 100,000 people, according to the International Database of Disasters. That represents a 95 percent reduction since the 1960s, but this decline comes not because there are fewer disasters but because we’re better able to deal with them. What’s more, we’re now setting long-term goals for net-zero-carbon electricity, American schools are establishing corporate leadership programs in sustainability, and more businesses understand the business case for developing sustainable processes.
So, the march of progress goes on, and you could add to the upside list a strong local, state, and national economy — especially given the economy we faced in 2010 — countless medical breakthroughs on diseases like cancer, dementia, and ALS, and the seemingly endless technological advances that improve our quality of life.
You don’t always have to drill deeper to understand that progress has been made, but it’s there. The trick is not giving in to the surrounding negativity.
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