Are You Better off Than You Were a Decade Ago?

In every single area of life dominated by market exchange and civil society, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

WiFi is better. Smartphones. Slack. Uber. More and better food options. Podcasts. Kindle paperwhite. Nearly every daily activity, productivity tool, information, entertainment, work, exercise, and leisure experience is better.

The only things worse than ten years ago are those dominated by monopoly governments and their protectionist crony regulations. Health care is worse. Air travel is neutral. Buying a car at a dealership is as awful as ever. Banking is a joke. Policing is more ominous.

Still, even though areas dominated by monopolized state violence are worse almost across the board, and even though a higher number of areas are touched by the tentacles of politics, the growth in all other areas of life still outpaced them. The growth in the rest of the real, voluntary world was faster. The influence of the state on my daily life is less, or at least I have more ability to make it less with physical and digital mobility.

Progress is not inevitable. It’s ultimately determined by the dominant beliefs of the population. But beliefs are shaped by more than argument. They are shaped by experience more often than not. Whether arguments for freedom and peace are winning, experiences of freedom and peace are.

That’s worth celebrating. Let’s keep building the free world. While the political clowns bloviate about dividing pies, making threats, and picking losers, we’ll bake new pies, create win-wins, and relegate them to the dustbin of history with serfdom and slavery.

This article was originally published on Isaac’s blog.