Update on AH

Compared to 1900, we have 8.28 million fewer farmers today with 263.7 million more people. And we live 30 years longer.

In 1900, the U.S. Census recorded a total population of 76.3 million, of which 11 million were farmers. Today, with a population nearing 340 million, the number of farmers has dropped to just 2.72 million.

Back then, each farmer fed 6.94 people. Today, each one feeds 125. While the U.S. population grew by 346 percent, farmer productivity soared by 1,702 percent. Each one percent increase in population corresponded to a 4.92 percent increase in farmer productivity.

In 1900, life expectancy was just 47 years. Today, it’s around 77. Medicine and sanitation played a role, but the abundance of food made possible by farmers discovering and applying new knowledge was a foundational driver of that gain.

So who’s going to tell Ehrlich and Thanos they had it backwards? More life discovers more knowledge, which leads to better tools and more abundant resources.

Learn more about our infinitely bountiful planet at superabundance.com. We explain and give hundreds of examples why more people with freedom means much more resource abundances for everyone in our book, Superabundance, available at Amazon.

Gale Pooley is a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute, an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute, and a board member at Human Progress.

You can now book Gale to speak about Superabundance and the new economics of human flourishing to your organization at All American Speakers.