I’ve been posting on the ASI site (adamsmith.org/blog) some of my ten reasons for being optimistic about the future. I covered food, where I expect GM technology to usher in a second Green Revolution that will feed humanity. I dealt with water, where a combination of low-tech and low-cost devices, plus advances in osmotic desalination technology, will give the world the clean water it needs to drink and to irrigate.
Yesterday I posted my view on the future of the world’s and the UK’s economy. I suggested that the first industrial revolution, founded initially on water power, and then on steam, and the second one, built upon electricity and the internal combustion engine, both brought economic expansion through huge gains in productivity.
I think the third industrial revolution, arising from computers, the Internet and biotechnology, will do the same, ushering in similar economic expansion. Globalization, far from hindering this process, will augment it. So even though economics has been called “the dismal science,” I am one of its optimists.
Filed under: Updates |
Madsen Pirie 