“Between 2000 and 2011, ninety per cent of developing countries have grown faster than the US, and they have done it on average by three per cent annually.
In just a decade, per capita income in the world’s low- and middle-income countries has doubled.
According to some statisticians, 28 March 2012 was a big day for humanity.
It was the first day in modern history developing countries were responsible for more than half of global GDP, up from thirty-eight percent ten years earlier.
This convergence makes sense.
If people have freedom and access to knowledge, technology and capital, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be able to produce as much as people anywhere else.
A country with a fifth of the world’s population should produce around a fifth of its wealth.
That has not been the case for centuries, because many parts of the world were held back by oppression, colonialism, socialism and protectionism.
But these have now diminished, and a revolution in transport and communication technology makes it easier to take advantage of a global division of labor, and use technologies and knowledge that it took other countries generations and vast sums of money to develop.
We live in a remarkable time.
Never before has the world seen such a dramatic poverty reduction.
When the Western world began to industrialize around the year 1800, we were 200 million people and it took fifty years to double the average income.
China and India have done the same thing with ten times more people, five times faster.
So in a way, you could say that globalization is fifty times bigger than the Industrial Revolution.
This gigantic shift, with the emergence of a global middle class, will not just change consumption patterns, it will also change our lifestyles and our attitudes to life and other human beings.
People with something precious to lose – a long, good life ahead – are not as willing to gamble everything for temporary gain.
People who believe in the future also invest more in the future.”
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