2020's Good News

Commentary From John Stossel on Town Hall.com (Dec. 30):

Was 2020 the worst year ever? The media keep saying that.

We did have the pandemic, a bitter election, unemployment, riots and a soaring national debt.

But wait, look at the good news, says historian Johan Norberg. His new book, "Open: The Story of Human Progress," points out how life keeps getting better, even if people just don't realize it.

2020 was "the best year in human history to face a pandemic," he says.

Had the pandemic happened in 2005, "You wouldn't have the technology to create mRNA vaccines."

"In 1990," he continues, "we wouldn't have a worldwide web. If we had had this pandemic in 1976, we wouldn't have been able to read the genome of the virus. And ... in 1950, we wouldn't have had a single ventilator."

These last 20 years, adds Norberg, have been especially good. "Mankind has attained more wealth than ever."

I push back: "There's more to life than wealth! And lot of this money went to the top 1%. Ordinary people think they're doing worse."

"If you look at specifics like global poverty, child mortality, chronic undernourishment and illiteracy," Norberg replies, "they all declined faster than ever."

Those things: global poverty, child mortality, undernourishment,and illiteracy are pretty good measures of quality of life. [read more]

The Left is always pessimist.