Counting Our Blessings: Ways the World is Getting Better

With all the bad news we read and hear about each day, it’s easy to miss the good news. But if we are to “forget not all His benefits” (Ps. 103:2) then we shouldn’t overlook the many ways that today’s generation is more blessed than we have ever been.

The big news? Mankind’s material well-being – our overall wealth – has increased rapidly in recent decades, and that’s alleviating poverty and lengthening life-spans for billions of people. In terms of daily living, things are generally getting better and better. In fact, the twentieth century witnessed the greatest improvement in living standards in the history of the world. People today live better and longer than at any time in history.

This is the theme of a book by economists Stephen Moore and Julian Simon entitled It’s Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years. They demonstrate that by every material measure, human life has dramatically improved since the early twentieth century. The also explain why this occurred, and credit it to the drive for innovation that results from free enterprise capitalism.