Keeping The Goose Warm...

"And although The Times' report avoids firmly answering the question "why?," the reason for this much-improved health isn't hard to find given that these health gains have been greatest in the industrialized world and that they started within the past two centuries.

The answer, in a word, is "capitalism."

Capitalism produces so much food that we are never malnourished; it produces ample clothing and sturdy homes to protect us from the elements; it produces the soaps, shampoos, toothpastes and detergents that we use every day to cleanse our bodies and living spaces of bacteria and other dirt. And by continually substituting machines for human labor, capitalism progressively makes our work less backbreaking and less perilous.

These gains are significant and real. And they are continuing; no one knows where, or even if, they will stop.

Those of us who recognize these important benefits of capitalism -- those of us who understand that capitalism's true greatness lies not (as many critics insinuate) in producing oceans of pointless trinkets and baubles but in making the lives of ordinary people richer and fuller and longer -- are reluctant to yield power to governments to tackle global warming. We worry that this power will kill the goose that's laying this golden egg". [ ... We'll need it to be good and warm for next Ice Age... -ed. ]