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Yes, the mood is downbeat. But the actual statistics – on the economy, terror, crime – tell a very different story
It seems a hard time to be confident about the state of the country – or the state of the planet. We are still facing the aftershocks of the worst recession since the great depression and a significant risk of dipping back into it. Europe's economy looks increasingly old and enfeebled compared with the virile young tigers of Asia. Terrorism strikes fear at home while war drags on in Afghanistan and violence is used against protesters in Syria and elsewhere. And the condition of the global environment appears fragile at best. How could anyone be hopeful in the face of such a litany of misery?
Because the last few decades have seen dramatic improvements in the quality of life in the UK, in Europe and worldwide. And the threats to the sustainability of that progress are not mysterious and unstoppable, but understood and distinctly manageable. Why not be optimistic?
Let's start with the economy. Despite the recent hiccup caused by global recession, between 1970 and 2010, average incomes in the UK more than doubled, according to data from the World Bank. And wealth has been spreading worldwide, so that poverty measured as the proportion of the population living on less than $1.25 a day has more than halved since 1990, thanks not least to rapid growth in China and India.
Some, of course, manage to see news of these victories over absolute deprivation as a grim foreboding. Europe may be relegated to a backwater appendage to the left end of a resurgent Asian continent. To which the only response is: "Get over it." The Asian renaissance will create exciting new opportunities for British manufacturing, trade and investment. Indeed, Britain's largest manufacturer is now India's Tata group. If this is bad for our sense of pride, perhaps that's a good thing.
Not only does the long-term future for the global economy look bright, but we'll be around longer to enjoy it. The average Briton born in 1960 could expect to live to 71. Today, the average Brit will live 10 years longer. Indeed, fewer people are dying at every stage of life. Nearly 3% of infants born in Britain died before their fifth birthday in 1960. Today that figure is one half of 1%. Think of your children or grandchildren and try to imagine the amount of grief we avoid thanks to that progress. Again, the UK is symptomatic of a truly dramatic global trend. In 1990, nearly 12 million children worldwide died before they had reached their fifth birthday; today, that figure is below 8 million.
You might expect people to consider better health and longer lifespans good news. But apparently not. It just makes people worried about who'll support all the old people, given that British birth rates have dropped so low in recent years. Surely it would be better for the UK economy if there were a few more youthful types around to sustain retirees in their ever-extending golden years. The simple answer to that is to import some.
In fact, migration is already playing a larger part in supporting economic vitality at home. In 1980, according to the World Bank, 6% of Britain's population were migrants. Today, that figure is above 10%. Migration does not come without some social costs of adjustment, but for those worried about migration leading to rivers of blood, a rising immigrant population in the UK has been accompanied by a declining crime rate. The British crime survey reports that violent crime in England and Wales in 2010/11 was down by 47% since its peak in 1995.
Once more, this is a microcosm of a considerably improving global picture regarding violent death – Afghanistan notwithstanding. There were 24 wars worldwide in 1984, but by 2008 that figure had dropped to five. The worldwide annual death toll from war, already very low by the previous century's standards in 2000, fell by a further 40% between then and 2008. Global military expenditures are about half of their level in 1990, with much of the savings going to health and education budgets.
But what about al-Qaida, itching to avenge the death of bin Laden, and the rest of a global terror network? As existential threats go, terrorism is a pretty pathetic one. US State Department statistics on the number of people killed each year by acts of international terrorism suggest the global total for the five years from 1999 to 2003 – spanning the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington – was 5,535 people. Those deaths were a tragedy, but it is worth putting them in perspective. That worldwide total loss to terror amounts to about a third of the number of deaths that occurred on the roads in the UK alone over the same period. Remember the days when Europe was split in two by the cold war, constantly facing the threat of nuclear annihilation? Frankly, the aggrieved friends of bin Laden don't appear much by way of substitute.
Thankfully, it seems that all the security alerts and emergency powers legislation in response to the terror chimera have not reversed a global march towards greater liberty. The Polity database, maintained by George Mason University in the US, rates the world's countries on their status between absolute autocracy and perfect democracy. The average global Polity score across countries has never been as high as it is today. Recent events in the Middle East are just the latest manifestation of a heartwarming fact: democracy is now the default for political systems worldwide.
Compared with the terror threat, our continued depletion of the global environmental is of considerably greater concern. But at least we know what to do about it – and it is eminently doable. We are already making progress. UK carbon dioxide emissions fell by 9% between 1991 and 2007. Between 1980 and 2009, the amount of income produced per unit of energy consumed in the UK doubled, reflecting a similar trend across the western world. With China and India announcing major drives towards renewable energy and even the US improving car-emissions standards, there's hope for a more sustainable future.
Technological advances will make responding to the challenge of climate change increasingly straightforward. Technology also means that never before have people worldwide had such a choice of goods and activities to spend their money on. In 1998, almost nobody in the UK could subscribe to a fixed broadband internet connection. By 2009, nearly a third of the population subscribed. Vaccines reduced measles mortality in Africa from 400,000 deaths a year to below 40,000 between 2000 and 2006 alone.
So we face challenges, but we have a growing capacity to respond. For the average inhabitant of Britain, or Europe, or the planet, there has never been a better time to be alive than today. And, like as not, that statement will be true again tomorrow, and the next day – and the next.