In the latest edition of his Ideas Matter update, Max Borders profiles Matt Ridley. He’s the “rational optimist” highlighted in this forum earlier this year when he delivered a Hayek lecture at Duke University.
Are we going to run out of food, resources and green space? Does trade make one party worse off? Is inequality the root of the world’s problems? Is the world going to overheat and cause catastrophe?
Matt Ridley answers these questions and more in the best writing on the relationship between resources, markets and well-being since Julian Simon. What’s superb about Ridley’s work is that he not only slays the doommongers with flair, but he explains the beautiful processes set in motion by people serving each other creatively.
So why are people so pessimistic?
It’s a tough question — one that requires a complex (and perhaps incomplete) answer. Here are my top five reasons:
Our ancestors evolved in environments in which famine and resource depletion were common. Struggles for survival among competing groups was commonplace. We inherited their dispositions, but we live in a different age.
- There are vested interests who benefit from the pessimism business.
- People need causes for a sense of purpose/identity. (Some causes are misguided.)
- It’s easier to get people excited and empassioned about catastrophe than optimism.
- Most people are linear thinkers. Lateral and systems thinkers know how to see the world as an emergent, self-organizing, self-equilibrating system.
Most stupid policies are born out of some combination of the above.
