I agree that the world has gotten much better than it was.
There are two important reasons for this, the other improvements that we see mostly follow from them.
Energy consumption (is wealth)
The energy consumption per person has increased over the last 500 years and that increased consumption translates to welfare.
Education (knowledge)
The amount of knowledge that we as humanity posses has increased dramatically, and that knowledge is widely accessible. 75% of kids finishing 9th grade, 12.5% finishing 6th grade, 4.65% less than 6th grade unfortunately around 7-8% kids have never gone to school. Education increases translate to increase in health, wealth (actually energy consumption) more in countries with market economies than non-market economies.
The various -isms (capitalism, socialism, communism, neoliberalism, colonialism, fascism) have very little to do with human development, and in fact have been very negative for human development. (I am skipping theory about how the -isms are supposed to work, and jumping to the actual effects).
I agree that the world has gotten much better than it was.
There are two important reasons for this, the other improvements that we see mostly follow from them.
Energy consumption (is wealth) The energy consumption per person has increased over the last 500 years and that increased consumption translates to welfare.
Education (knowledge) The amount of knowledge that we as humanity posses has increased dramatically, and that knowledge is widely accessible. 75% of kids finishing 9th grade, 12.5% finishing 6th grade, 4.65% less than 6th grade unfortunately around 7-8% kids have never gone to school. Education increases translate to increase in health, wealth (actually energy consumption) more in countries with market economies than non-market economies.
The various -isms (capitalism, socialism, communism, neoliberalism, colonialism, fascism) have very little to do with human development, and in fact have been very negative for human development. (I am skipping theory about how the -isms are supposed to work, and jumping to the actual effects).