2012 -- The Greatest Year Ever?

An article in The Spectator (attributed to Harvard experimental psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker in a post in MetaFilter, though I don't see a byline) argues that 2013 was the greatest year in the history of the world:

It may not feel like it, but 2012 has been the greatest year in the history of the world. That sounds like an extravagant claim, but it is borne out by evidence. Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.

The article goes on to assert that globally the goals for reducing poverty (set by the UN) were met seven years earlier than anticipated, that globally economic inequality is decreasing; that while the world's richest economies richest economies are growing their fossil fuel consumption is decreasing; that in Africa the average life expectancy has increased dramatically the last several years; that AIDS and malaria are in decline; that extreme weather kills far fewer people when there are resources to address it and those resources are increasing; and that deaths from war have dramatically declined.

Some of that analysis is a bit simplistic. One thing that should ring clear, though, is that the idea that things globally are unremittingly bad is wrong. Things can get much better (or much worse) depending on how we and our societies handle them.

The article states:

Yet [reduction of those in extreme poverty] did not merit an official announcement, presumably because it was not achieved by any government scheme but by the pace of global capitalism. Buying cheap plastic toys made in China really is helping to make poverty history. And global inequality? This, too, is lower now than any point in modern times. Globalisation means the world’s not just getting richer, but fairer too.

Some of that is silly -- the author does not know what merits an announcement or not or why or even that there was no announcement (there were many announcements, though some in the press may not have deemed them too worthy -- I didn't find a prior article in The Spectator, for example), but the idea that the exchange of goods and capital and ideas and information across borders reduces poverty and improves thing generally is right. Indeed, those who would seek to have the U.S. exert "its position" in the world through force, though often ardent laissez faire libertarian types, do not seem to fully grok the benefits of capitalism. (To elaborate, though I digress, they too often oppose all regulation and taxation when, in fact, some regulation and taxation are not only necessary but beneficial for capitalist systems for their long term success. While the reasons why should be transparent, let me note that capitalist systems require infrastructure to function, they require opportunity and access to markets which requires a reasonable amount of non-stratification in society, and they require non-abuse of resources and enforceable product and service standards.)