Quick Book Review: It's Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 Years

Immunizations, electricity, and the microprocessor: the best inventions/discoveries ever?

Stephen Moore and Julian Simon's book It's Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 years years is one of the most repetitive, boring, and profound books I've ever read.

It's repetitive and boring in that it is a litany of fact, after fact, after fact re: how much progress humanity has made, particularly over the last century or so. It's profound in that it really slams home how much economic progress we have made. And that does not just mean a few fat cats on Wall Street and trust fund kids, quite the opposite. The average person on the planet is much, much better off than even a few generations ago, the average American even more so.

It's Getting Better All the Time is not just a handful of political rants. Julian Simon was known for being a meticulous slave to facts and historical data. To say that the book's facts and figures are well researched would be a massive understatement. The notes and references are extensive.

Of particular value were the discussions of:

• the plight of the poor
• agricultural productivity
• average lifespan improvements
• worker productivity
• OSHA
• more trees in the U.S. now than in 1492
• the myth of real wage stagnation
• the myth of a worsening environment
  

There's really no way I could do this book justice in a brief review. I can only say grab a copy and read it. Even reading the opening chapter alone would be a big eye-opener for most people. I have gone from being pessimistic about our future to rather optimistic. It's really a shame Julian Simon is gone.

This book is a must-read!

Details:
It's Getting Better All the Time: 100 Greatest Trends of the Last 100 years at Google Books.
It's Getting Better All the Time at Amazon.
The book's Table of Contents.

Cafe Hayek: "It's Getting Better All the Time": "Patrons of the Cafe know that Russ and I are generally skeptical of most of the fear-mongering about the state of humanity. Admittedly, we are both deeply influenced by the late Julian Simon, who is, in my opinion, the most underrated economist ever to live."

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