I’ve been called many things in my time at The Daily Reveille.
Critics have labeled me a radical, a doomsayer, a “nega-tiger,” a liberal, a conservative and a “pussy on a pedestal” — not to mention some of the more colorful e-mails that show up in my inbox.
But in my two years as a columnist, there is one label I pride myself on that many readers wouldn’t dare consider.
I, Scott Burns, consider myself an enduring optimist.
To be sure, my columns don’t always reflect my sustained optimism. There’s no doubt I’ve expressed a fair share of criticism for our current political system and a massive distrust for those in charge of it.
In the short run, I have little doubt our nation will undergo more hardships   — thanks largely to the moral and economic ineptitude of our ruling elite.
However, given the remarkable progress mankind has made — most notably in recent generations — I remain fervently optimistic about what the world will look like 10, 20, 30, 40 or even 50 years from now.
If history is any indicator, the future has the potential to be much brighter than our ancestors could’ve ever imagined.
From the year 1000 to 1820 the advance in per capita income was relatively stagnant.
Since 1820, economic development has been much more dynamic. Per capita income rose more than eightfold, and the world population more than fivefold, according to Angus Maddison, author of “The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective.”
In the words of James Buchanan, distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, “When I look to the future, I get very nervous. But when I look to the past, I feel pretty good.”
Many human beings err toward pessimism, projecting our current plights into the future and assuming conditions will continue to worsen.
But according to Matt Ridley, author of “The Rational Optimist,” the best source of hope for the future comes from looking back at the enormous progress mankind has made, not just during the past few centuries, but in the last generation alone.
“It’s so easy to forget that the long-run trend is so gloriously positive,” Ridley observed in a recent interview with Econtalk’s Russ Roberts.
“I became an adult in the 1970s. The population was said to be out of control; famine was inevitable; cancer epidemics were going to shorten our lives; our sperm counts were falling; the forests were going to be killed; global cooling was ‘ushering in a new ice age.'”
Moreover, Ridley notes unemployment was rising, inflation was high, and the oil was going to run out. All in all, things were looking pretty bleak.
Over the next few decades, however, Ridley’s generation saw the world economy snap out of recession, with Third World nations like China and India taking off and worldwide economic growth continuing at unprecedented rates.
The world also saw an extraordinary reduction in polity and ill health.
“Over the next 25 years, people all across the world became healthier, wealthier, wiser, freer and more equal,” Ridley notes.
Of course, looking to the past doesn’t definitively prove the future will be some sort of majestic utopia. But it does show the challenges our society faces today are surmountable.
It’s easy to get bogged down by current circumstances and assume the world will continue to collapse into insanity, especially in light of our nation’s ever-worsening economic and socio-political climate. But once we acknowledge how far we’ve come over the years, we’ll see our modern challenges provide an enormous opportunity for our generation to come together and serve as an inspiration to future generations.
Even better — we can start looking toward the future with a renewed and rational sense of optimism.
Scott Burns is a 21-year-old economics and history senior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_sburns.
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Contact Scott Burns at [email protected]