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“Let a smile be your umbrella … a smile will always pay.” That is from a tune which became very popular through a 1957 recording by Bing Crosby.
Optimism is increasingly praiseworthy. Our television and radio media more and more focus on catastrophes of various kinds — earthquakes that are metaphorical as well as literal.
This does not mean our world is becoming more dangerous, difficult or disaster-prone. Rather, established media, along with many other areas of life, are being challenged and transformed.
Disasters are not the real world in which the vast majority of the population lives and works.
Describing significant positive developments and trends is helpful. First on the list, perhaps most important, the average human life span is increasing, dramatically.
This is particularly true in economically advanced nations. In industrial nations, the average human life span doubled in the 20th century. Stephen Moore and Julian Simon describe and analyze this in detail in the CATO Institute’s “It’s Getting Better All the Time.”
Second, the vast mass of people in the world are no longer in abject poverty. As recently as 1980, approximately one-half of the population on the planet lived in “extreme poverty.”
The World Bank defines that condition as an income below $2.15 per day valued in 2017 dollars, an estimate that takes account of drastically different cost and price structures in various countries and regions.
Through the long sweep of human history, the overwhelming majority of people lived in destitution. Imminent death was a fact of life. That is no longer true.
The COVID-19 pandemic distracted from, but did not seriously interrupt, this vast, increasingly universal trend. Predictions of negative economic consequences from lockdowns and other restrictions were wrong, though isolated children suffered.
Our collective reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic indicate greater prosperity has brought much higher public-health expectations. In 1968-69, approximately 300,000 mostly young men rotating back home from military service in and around Vietnam introduced the Hong Kong Flu to the United States.
The contagion spread like wildfire. Unlike COVID, young people did not have relative immunity. President Lyndon Johnson spent time in the hospital, including intensive care.
That pandemic did not become politicized. People then understood, realistically, that disease was unavoidably part of life.
Most important, despite all the COVID-induced chaos, less than 10% of the world’s population today is living in abject poverty.
Third, democracy is spreading. As recently as four decades ago, the people of Latin America lived almost uniformly in various degrees of authoritarian rule.
Today, Cuba is the remaining extreme dictatorship in the Americas. Despite pervasive and ruthless state political control, the desperate need for foreign investment is forcing even Havana’s geriatric Communists to loosen their iron grip.
Once tiny Costa Rica was a beacon of freedom south of our border. Now that light spreads throughout the Americas. Even the autocrats currently in charge in Venezuela are obliged to face the people, in referendums as well as elections.
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Likewise, genuinely representative governments are spreading in Africa, Asia and elsewhere. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other nations are overshadowed by disturbing news from China and North Korea. That is unfortunate. Democracy is spreading in Asia.
Undeniably, free economies and representative democracies are interconnected. Adam Smith’s classic “The Wealth of Nations” appeared in 1776, the year the American Revolution began.
For Americans today, our greatest danger may be our own fears.
Calm is required.
Unfortunately, that is more easily preached than practiced.
Arthur I. Cyr is author of “After the Cold War — American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia” (NYU Press and Macmillan/Palgrave).
Contact acyr@carthage.edu