Fewer, Richer, Greener: Prospects for Humanity in an Age of Abundance
(By Laurence B. Siegel)
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| Author | Laurence B. Siegel |
"That great explainer of everything to everybody." --Richard Flannery, CEO, The Investment Fund for Foundations
Our world is burdened with disappearing economic growth, a deteriorating environment, limited natural resources, and not just too many people, but too many old people. Really? While such pessimism may mark you as a wise soul at the neighborhood cocktail party, it isn't supported by the facts. Yes, there are reasons to worry, as there have always been. But there are far more reasons to be optimistic, as author Laurence Siegel explains in his fascinating look at the future, Fewer, Richer, Greener. The recent dramatic slowing in global population growth will allow prosperity to spread from the developed to the developing world. Prosperity is mostly based on technology in the broadest sense of that word--meaning "the techniques we use for getting the most out of what we have." That technology is cumulative. We have what we had yesterday, plus whatever new technology is developed today. Except in times of massive economic dislocation, the present is better than the past--and the future will be better still. Using narrative, data, biography and interviews with leading thinkers, Fewer, Greener, Richer, traces the history of economic progress and explosres its consequences for human life around the world.
We are, as Siegel explains, at the turning point where the economic development of the past 200 years in the first world has begun to spread to the rest of the globe. Using sources ranging from the Old Testament to the latest writings on economics, biology, and philosophy, Siegel tells the story of how we arrived at this point, and lays out a vision for the progress we are about to witness. This future will not be without problems, but we will have the knowledge and technology to solve those problems in ways that would have be unimaginable only a few decades ago.”
