Far from being the end of days, the world is now experiencing a golden era, says Fraser Nelson.
Sure, it’s 2012 – the year that the world is meant to end, according to apocalypse aficionados armed with the Mayan calendar. And it’s hard not to think that they might have something, with all the wars, famine, economic meltdowns, freakish weather events, and Kardashians out there. But Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, disagrees.
In an article for The Telegraph, Nelson claims that far from hurtling towards apocalypse, we are in fact living in a Golden Age for humanity.
The world has never been richer, healthier, freer or more equal than it is today.
Fraser examined global poverty, “a subject we have heard plenty about from ministers justifying the £9 billion overseas aid budget”. Britain signed up to theMillennium Development Goals, set in 2000, the first goal of which was to halve the proportion of the world’s population living on a dollar a day by 2015. In fact, earlier this year, the World Bank made an “astonishing discovery”: This target had already been met in 2008.
This staggering achievement received no fanfare, perhaps because the miracle had not been created by Western governments but by the economic progress of China and India. Their embrace of capitalism had invited a flow of trade and investment, which was not halted by the crash. Capitalism meant that houses replaced mud huts and vast swathes of the Third World rose from their agrarian knees. British consumers buying cheap shirts in Asda were, in a very real sense, helping to make poverty history.
We’re living in an era where richer nations are healthier nations, where diseases such as AIDS are being met with medical advancements. And if you’re worried about fossil fuels – actually, we’re using less. Basically, governments create and exaggerate problems – but real change comes from the people.
Nelson concluded:
“[D]on’t listen too hard to the politicians. It will just depress you. They do their best, and sometimes even help things, but play a minor role in the development of nations. A country is not shaped by manifestos or five-year plans, but by the courage and ingenuity of its people. And the Olympics, a glorious festival of human achievement, is far closer to what’s really happening out there.”
Do you agree? Let us know!
More in world problems, the apocalypse
- Syria on the edge of all-out war
- We’re all going to die
- We survived the apocalypse that didn’t happen!
