CONCLUSION

             No food, one problem.  Much food, many problems. (Anonymous)


             With reasonable surety one can expect that the material

        conditions of life will continue to get better for most people,

        in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely.  Within a

        century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or

        above today's Western living standards.  The basis for this

        forecast is the set of trends discussed in my other books and

        summarized in the Introduction, together with the simple economic

        theory stated there.

             Whatever wild nature has spontaneously produced that we use

        - food, oil, diamonds - humankind now can also produce by design,

        and faster than nature.  An expectancy of health and a standard

        of living higher than that which any prince or princess enjoyed

        two hundred years ago now is the birthright of every middle-class

        and working-class person in developed countries, and of most

        people in poverty as well.  What is still to come is to bring

        these material gains to all groups of humanity.  That may take

        half a century or a century.  Yet that benign outcome may be

        predicted with high likelihood.  This is a happy vision, indeed.

             Why should you believe this forecast rather than the

        forecasts made by the doomsayers?  Three reasons:

           (1)  This "side" has been right across the board in the

        forecasts we have made in the past few decades, whereas the

        doomsayers have been wrong across the board.

           (2)  Throughout the long sweep of history, forecasts of
        resource scarcity have always been heard, and - just as now - the
        doomsayers have always claimed that the past was no guide to the
        future because they stood at a turning point in history.  But the
        turning point forecasts have been wrong; there have been ups and
        downs, but no permanent reversals.  In every period those who
        would have bet on improvement rather than deterioration in
        fundamental aspects of material life - such as the availability
        of natural resources - would usually have been right.

           (3)  I'll bet my reputation and my money on these forecasts

        (if I win, the money goes to pay for research), whereas the

        doomsayers back off from putting their money where their mouths

        are; they refuse to put either their cash or their names on the

        line to back what they say.  (Indeed, the most famous of the

        doomsayers was burned badly when in 1980 his group actually did

        wager on some of his forecasts.)  The doomsters' unwillingness to

        make wager commitments should call into question whether (a) they

        really believe the dire forecasts that they make, or (b) they

        just make statements they don't believe in to scare the public

        and mobilize the government to do their will.

             But I make another and darker forecast, though admittedly

        based on much less solid evidence:  Many people will continue to

        think and say that the material conditions of life are getting

        worse even though the conditions actually are getting better.

        This assessment will only become more cheerful when (or if)

        humanity invents or evolves or stumbles into an invigorating set

        of new challenges that will (a) capture peoples' imaginations and

        hearts and wills, and (b) replace the inter-group political

        struggles that now increasingly supplant the struggle against

        nature for a better material life.

             Why should people's perceptions of the trends be the

        opposite of the facts?  That is the subject of this book.  One

        element worth repeating here:  The future for the correct

        perception of these trends looks bleak because of their

        inaccurate portrayal in the press.  One cause of the media's

        inaccuracy is that the techniques that journalists use so well to

        cover fires and local politics do not work well for matters that

        go beyond first-hand observation.  This includes scientific

        matters, as illustrated nowadays by environmental questions.  And

        the bad-news bias in journalism turns every story negative even

        if the underlying facts are positive.  This leads the public to

        think that conditions in general are getting worse.  The press

        then reports this as pessimism.  This process could have

        increasingly dire effects upon the public mood.

           This pessimistic outlook for one aspect of our world does not

        mean, however, that people will be less "happy" about their own

        lives; about that I have no prediction.  I do not predict how the

        changed material conditions will affect struggles between good

        and evil, or how increased affluence will change life in the

        future emotionally, sexually, socially, or spiritually.


                        DOES THE MARKET FOR NEWS FAIL US?

             Is this a case of what some economists call "market

        failure"?  That is, are the economic forces in this case

        insufficient to provide what one could expect a well-functioning

        market to provide?  I do not think so.  It is not reasonable to

        expect free markets to always bring us what is good for society

        and individuals within any foreseeable period, if ever.  The

        conditions in some markets inevitably produce a certain amount of

        fraud; an example is the encyclopedia industry, where the

        salesperson expects never to see the customer again after a

        purchase is made, and therefore there is no incentive to keep the

        customer's good will - no market sanction - for providing

        misinformation about the product and its use.  Other industries

        inevitably provide goods that are bad for many people; hard drugs

        are an easy example. And special government intervention beyond

        the enforcement of the basic laws governing markets may do more

        harm than good in such cases.

             I do not have any easy remedies to suggest.  I hope that the

        personal integrity of journalists and media owners will lead them

        to hew to high standards.  This is not at all an unrealistic

        hope, or one that is at odds with the notion of free enterprise;

        anyone who thinks that business is by nature dog-eat-dog with no

        holds barred other than what will get you thrown in jail entirely

        misunderstands the nature of a free-enterprise economy and

        society.  On the other hand, anyone who expects all persons to

        hew to such high standards, or for the market always to enforce

        high standards in the long and short run, is charmingly naive.

             The more competitors in the news marketplace the better.

        The greater the number of firms competing, the more it will be

        profitable for at least a few of the many competitors to show how

        others are scandalously misinforming the public; muckraking the

        false muckrakers can be exciting news, too.  False bad news will

        also draw the attention and energies of true do-gooders who will

        operate think tanks and other not-for-profit private activities

        that turn the searchlight of truth onto the Willy Suttons of the

        press, and squeeze them a bit.

             It may well be, however, that there will always be

        structurally-based incentives to produce a lot of false bad news.

        Only the future of the news media will reveal the answer to that

        question, and I do not know of any studies of the trends that

        would provide a solid basis for forecast.

                ARE THE FALSE IDEAS AND THREATS OF DOOM DANGEROUS?

             The history of mankind is the history of ideas.  For it
             is ideas, theories, and doctrines that guide human
             action, determine the ultimate ends men aim at, and the
             choice of the means employed for the attainment of
             these ends. (Ludwig von Mises, quoted in The Freeman,
             Feb 1993, p. 42.)

             WRONG!

             False ideas and threats of doom have perverse effects on

        people's morale, and on short-run governmental policies.  But

        they will not deflect humanity from the long-run path of material

        progress.  It is not ideas that are crucial in the long run, but

        rather individual's and families' and communities' desires to

        make better lives for themselves.

             Though I admire much of von Mises's economics, I consider

        the above headnote to exemplify the megalomania of the

        intellectual class.  All of us like to think we are important -

        intellectuals certainly as much as anyone.  And yes, ideas can be

        powerful in the intermediate run - witness the disaster caused by

        Marxist thinking for seventy years in eastern Europe and China.

        But in the longer run, the elemental forces of peoples' desires

        to carve out a good living for themselves and for their families,

        to have children and raise them happily and well-educated, to

        employ ones' talents and energies and to possess their fruits -

        these forces will eventuate in government policies that allow

        people these fundamental freedoms.  There probably always will be

        temporary reversals and reversions to totalitarianism for a

        while.  But we can hope that in an ever-ramified world where

        people can move ever more freely, these reversions will be of

        shorter duration and of lesser magnitude.

             The more that humanity progresses, the less that false ideas

        will matter, because the variety of political and economic

        regimes offered competitively by the various countries, and the

        easy mobility among them, will provide the necessary

        opportunities for entrepreneurs and other talented persons.  The

        need grows less for philosophers of liberty to eke out for

        society a bit of freedom from the clutches of politicians

        intoxicated with the chance to put into operation their delusions

        of improvement by central control (theirs).  People will achieve

        it anyway.

             On the other hand, with greater progress comes greater

        freedom from pressing survival needs, which enables people to

        indulge themselves in foolish, irrational, and counter-productive

        thinking, and can lead to mass movements that impede progress.

        (We might note that farmers and small retailers, who are of

        necessity in exceedingly close touch with economic reality, are -

        at least I so think - relatively free of foolish economic

        thinking, if only as the result of a Darwinian process.

        Hopefully, this process will be kept from going to far by the

        press of the basic needs.

           As to the non-material aspects of human existence - our

        emotional, social, sexual, and spiritual lives - good luck to us.



        page 1 mediabk mconclus July 18, 1995