Change creates prosperity
#173
My Dear Friend of Democracy,
We like to think that we live in a time of significant change. That things have never changed faster than they do today.
That may not be true.
Perhaps the process of change has been almost unbroken for more than 200 years. A few figures (from Germany): In 1800, 62 per cent of the working population had to work in agriculture to produce the necessary food. By 1914, this proportion had fallen to 34 per cent. Currently, less than a million people are employed in agriculture, which is just under 2 per cent of all workers.
In other words, 98 per cent can take care of an increase in prosperity that goes beyond the most essential human concern, namely, having enough food. A good development. And one that began well over two centuries ago and continues not only in agriculture.
Constant change has become the central characteristic of our time.
The current successes of populists and extremists who win elections by promising that everything can stay as it is (or worse, that it will go back to how it was) indicate that constant change is perhaps the greatest challenge for democracy. Because although changes are beneficial overall, they also create losers.
Good politics supports and compensates. So that the change does not make anyone worse off. Then populists and extremists are in a bad position.
See you in Europe,
Johannes