Dare to be an optimist!

I can barely stand to read the newspapers. Just as we thought the world economy was on the road to recovery, Europe has imploded. The nations of the euro zone are desperately hacking and slashing at the welfare state to salvage their credit ratings. Two years ago, when the banks got into trouble, nations stepped in to bail them out. But who will step in to bail out nations?

In Canada, we have our troubles, too. A few years from now, oldsters in this country will outnumber children. As schools are rapidly converted into retirement homes, our streets will be thronged with nannies for grannies – if people can afford them, which seems increasingly unlikely. On top of that, the Earth is bleeding oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Pardon me while I go back to bed, permanently.

But wait a minute. Every previous generation in history would have happily traded places with us. So what if the Germans will have to sacrifice a week or two of paid vacation time, or if hairdressers in Greece will no longer be able to retire with a pension at the age of 50? Almost all their babies live. And they’ll still be stupendously well off. The world has become so much richer that today, the average Botswanan earns more than the average Finn did in 1955. And she probably has TV and a cellphone too.

Here in Canada, there wouldn’t be an oldsters problem if only oldsters were considerate enough to expire at the age they used to. Instead, they insist on living longer and longer (and enjoying better health). The greatest nutrition crisis in the richer half of the world isn’t malnourishment or rickets. It’s obesity. Let’s face it. Compared to plagues and famines and the necessity of setting Granny loose on an ice flow when she got to be a burden, these are good problems to have.

Perhaps this sounds impossibly Panglossian. But for most people on the planet, the human condition has immeasurably improved. And according to an exuberant new book by British science writer Matt Ridley, things will keep on getting better. It’s called The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves. Not that Mr. Ridley thinks people will be easily persuaded. “A constant drumbeat of pessimism usually drowns out this sort of talk,” he admits. “Indeed, if you dare to say the world is going to go on getting better, you are considered embarrassingly mad.”

What is it about humans that has enabled such astonishing cultural progress? And what makes Mr. Ridley think it will continue? It’s not our big brains or our opposable thumbs, or even language, he argues. Genetically, we’re pretty much identical to the people who drew pictures in the Chauvet caves 32,000 years ago. He argues that the key to cultural progress is our facility for exchanging – something no other animal does. Through exchanging – first things, then ideas – humans specialized their efforts and talents for individual gain. This encouraged innovation, which improved prosperity and living standards.

Mr. Ridley, who is the author of the best-selling Genome and three other books on evolution, draws an inviting analogy between biological and cultural evolution. The key to biological evolution is sex, which mixes up the gene pool in an infinity of ways, some of which are highly beneficial. The key to cultural evolution is exchange. “At some point, human intelligence became collective and cumulative in a way that happened to no other animal,” he writes. “Ideas began to meet and mate, to have sex with each other.” Over time, the best ideas – the ones that delivered the most prosperity and well-being – tended to win out.