Bonus Quotation of the Day…

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… is the final paragraph of Tony Morley’s August 24th, 2020, essay – “The Great Decline in Poverty Over Time” – at Humanprogress.org:

Finally, consider the following comparison. In 1800, life expectancy in the United Kingdom was 38.6 years, and GDP per capita was $3280. By 2019, life expectancy in the UK was 81.1 years, and GDP per capita was hovering around $40,000. At 59.2 years, life expectancy in today’s Somalia, which is the world’s poorest country, is more than 20 years higher than that in the world’s wealthiest country 220 years ago. Our goal as individuals and as a civilization must be to understand those conditions which led to human flourishing – and to utilize the knowledge and tools at our disposal to encourage its further propagation.