So, here are five reasons to be cheerful in 2017 n We’re healthier than ever before. A century ago, global average life expectancy at birth was just 35. When I was born, it was 60. Recently it rose above 70. Even in Africa and the former Soviet Union, where life expectancy fell in the 1990s, the upward trend has resumed and longevity is now at the highest level yet recorded. Partly this progress is thanks to far more widespread access to good sanitation. And it’s partly because there are treatments — vaccines and antibiotics, for example — that were not available for any money 100 years ago but now cost pennies. Charles Kenny, author of Getting Better (2011), wrote: “Countries as poor and wretched as Haiti, Burma and the Congo have infant mortality rates today that are lower than those that any country in the world achieved in 1900.” There is a much-noted exception to this finding. Late in 2015, economists Anne Case and Nobel laureate Angus Deaton found that mortality has recently been increasing in middle-aged non-Hispanic whites in the US. The finer details of that finding have been disputed but it’s certainly clear that this particular group hasn’t been enjoying the advances in health that are so widespread elsewhere. Yet it’s only striking news because lack of progress in health is so unusual. n Despite this increase in life expectancy, the number of people living on the planet is increasing much more slowly than in the 20th century. World population growth, which was an unsustainable 2 per cent a year in the 1960s, has been falling steadily and is about to drop below 1 per cent a year. This is good news for the planet. n The world economy continues to grow and, despite a decade of economic distress in the US and Europe, world growth rates have reliably exceeded 3 per cent. At such a rate, the world economy itself doubles in size every 20-25 years. Such growth poses serious environmental challenges but, on balance, it’s a lot better than stagnation. According to data assembled by the economist Max Roser, the proportion of the world’s population living in the most extreme poverty has fallen from about 95 per cent two centuries ago to about 60 per cent 50 years ago to about 10 per cent today.
n The fruits of this growth are not quite so unevenly distributed as some commentary would have us believe. There is no one simple way to measure global income inequality but it’s reasonable to describe it as falling: China and India, after all, are large, poor and growing quickly. In the US, income inequality has risen. But in the UK, it has not — at least, not for a generation. Income inequality across most of the UK population increased dramatically in the 1980s but has fallen a little since then. At the very top of the UK income distribution, inequality continued to increase for longer. Yet it fell after the financial crisis, and the share of income enjoyed by the top 5 per cent, top 1 per cent and top 0.1 per cent is lower today than it was in 2000. Inequality is still high in the UK, but this is an old problem rather than a worsening one. n Finally, there’s the decline in war, murder, torture and many other kinds of violence over the long run, certainly since 1945 and, arguably, over a much longer period. It was most famously documented by Steven Pinker in his 2011 book The Better Angels of Our Nature. Is this certain to continue? Perhaps not in a world where nuclear war is possible. Nevertheless, so far, so good. None of this is to suggest that all is well. There’s plenty to concern any reasonable person, from the growth of nationalism in Europe, to Donald Trump’s apparent belligerence, to the alarming changes in the planet’s climate, to the ability of terrorists to strike in Europe’s capitals. So I’m worried about what 2017 has in store for us. But it’s not because I think the world is going to hell. It’s because I think we have so much progress to celebrate — and so much to lose.
THE YEAR AHEAD The Institute of Directors Isle of Man Members Opinions We spoke to some of the members and experts in their industry sector about what lies ahead for the Isle of Man in these times of global uncertainty.
The Members Panel WEALTH & INVESTMENT: Anthony Page, Managing Director, Knox House Trust Limited LEGAL: Charles Coleman, Director, Gough Law TECHNOLOGY: Kurt Roosen, Chairman, MICTA TOURISM: Brian Kelly, Chairman, ORTG RETAIL: Adrian Higgins, Director, Specsavers MANUFACTURING: David Hester, Chair, Chamber of Commerce Engineering and Manufacturing Committee
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