TheMacroView Episode 18: Poverty is Natural NOT Shocking - Wealth is Miraculous

For most of human history, the wealthiest people in the world maintained a standard of living inferior to some of the poorest working people in the developed countries of today.

Using numbers from the Maddison Project, Host Andrew Smith, guide's listeners through the economic productivity history of the past 2000 years, from 1 AD to 1700 AD productivity among the most productive country of each the time, didn't even double. From 1700 to 2010, economic productivity EXPLODED. The average person in the most productive country in 1700 (Great Britain) produced the equivalent of about 6 loaves of bread per person. By 2000 that productivity had increased 19 fold, and the average person in the US (the most productive country at the time) was producing the equivalent of 112 loaves of bread per day.

Meanwhile in countries with tyranical, oppressive governments and collectivist economic policies have not only lagged behind the rest of the world, but in some cases, still maintain a per person productivity measure in constant dollars LESS than the Ancient Empires (Roman, Greek, Persian, Ottoman, Byzantium, Spanish, British, Prussian and Nordic). The war-torn Congo for example, has a per person production measures that is equal to about a single loaf of bread per person per day.