Currently, there is widespread pessimism about Economy. It is often heard that the era of tremendous economic advancement that characterized the nineteenth century is over, that rapid improvement in living standards is now slowing, at least in Britain, and that in the next decade, welfare cuts are more likely than growth.
I think that’s a totally wrong interpretation of what we’re experiencing. We do not suffer from rheumatism of aging, but as a result of the pain of excessively rapid changes, as a result of adaptive processes in the transition period. The development of technical competence is faster than solving the problem of assimilation of the workforce; The improvement in living standards is also very rapid. The global banking and monetary system prevents interest rates from falling fast enough from an equilibrium point of view. However, the waste and resulting mess consumes no more than 7.5 percent. National income. We waste 1 shilling and 6 pence per pound, and we only have 18 shillings and 6 pence, while we could have had the whole pound if we were more logical however, 18 6 pence today equals 1 pound five or six years ago. We forget that in 1929, industrial production in Great Britain was the largest in history, and the net surplus in our foreign trade balance, which could be earmarked for new foreign investment, after all imports were paid, was greater than last year than any other country, exceeding 50 percent. US surplus. In comparison, if we cut our wages in half, they would give up four-fifths of the national debt and accumulate excess fortunes in gold bars, instead of borrowing at 6%. Or more, we would be like the France we envy so much. But does that mean an improvement?
The economic crisis prevailing in the world, the extremely high unemployment despite the enormous needs, the catastrophic mistakes we made prevent us from seeing what is happening under the surface, and we cannot properly explain the reality. Because I expect the two opposing pessimists to be very loud right now in the world – both are pessimists of revolutionaries who think it is so bad that nothing can save us apart from sudden change, and pessimism of reactionaries, who see our economic and social balance of life so precarious that you cannot risk Any experiment will prove them wrong.
However, my goal in this article is not to explore the present or anticipate the coming years, but to look to the distant future. What level of economic life can we expect in 100 years? What are the economic prospects of our grandchildren?
From the earliest times for which we have data, for example, two thousand BC until the early eighteenth century, changes in the standard of living of the average person in urbanized areas of the world have not been drastic. Of course there were ups and downs, and pestilences, wars and famines. Golden times. But without a sharp developmental change. In four thousand years, say 1700, some periods were better than others, but at a maximum of 100%.
This slow progress (or lack thereof) was for two reasons – there were neither major technical improvements nor capital accumulation.
The lack of advanced technical inventions between the prehistoric era and the relatively modern era is truly astonishing. Almost everything really necessary and possessed by mankind at the beginning of the modern era has been known to mankind since the dawn of time. We knew a tongue, a fire, the same pet that we have today: wheat, barley, vine, olives, plow, wheel, oar, sail, leather, cloth, bricks, utensils, gold, silver, copper, tin, lead, and iron. Before 1000 BC such as banking, political constructions, mathematics, astronomy, and religion. There are no written sources telling us since they were with us.
In some prehistoric times, and perhaps even in one of the favorable periods before the last Ice Age, there must have been an era of progress and invention similar to the one we are living in today. But for most of written history, nothing like this has happened.
