The popular gloom notwithstanding, we're actually living in an era of astounding progress. We've seen the greatest reduction in global poverty in history. As Steven Pinker has documented, we've seen a steady decline in wars and armed conflict. The US economy is the best performing major economy in the developed world.
In 1980 the US had a slight edge in gross domestic product per capita over Germany, Japan, France and the UK. But the US has grown much faster than the other major economies over the past 37 years, so that now it produces about $US54,000 of output per capita compared with about $US39,000 for Japan and France.
