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« Telling the Palestinian story | Main | Headline angst » Friday, November 17, 2006On the benefits of economic growthOver at Crooked Timber, Chris Bertram responds to a rebuttal of an earlier post in which he attempted to draw a dividing line in the developed world between economic growth beyond a threshold level and ... well, any measure of social success, including overall happiness. The rebuttal was by Tyler Cowen, who posited that the coming century in the (post-) industrialized world could see incomparable human progress, citing medical advances, mitigation of tragedies, and "cognitive enhancements" (a touch of sci-fi?). Bertram's point is in general a solid one empirically; it is supported, though he doesn't say so, by data gathered in the last several years by the British economist Richard Layard and "American Mania" author Peter Whybrow. But I don't find his rebuttal of Cowen very persuasive. It's important to note that economic GDP isn't all there is, so to speak, but it is indeed likely, as Cowen says, that societal wealth will contribute to advances in medical technology, due to the relative luxury of massive R & D. Posted by Evan Hughes at 01:14 PM
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