Commentary: In Spite of Headlines, the World is Not Getting Worse

There is a natural human bias toward bad news. The title of a 1998 article in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology sums it up: “Negative Information Weighs More Heavily on the Brain.”

Negative stimuli get our attention much more than positive stimuli—which makes evolutionary sense for survival. Nice things are enjoyable; bad things can be deadly, so focus on them. And given that, in the news media, attention equals money, we can see the commercial reason for a lack
of headlines such as “Millions not going to bed hungry tonight.”

Frequently, however, the bad-news bias gives us a highly inaccurate picture of the world. According to a 2013 survey, 67 percent of Americans think global poverty is on the rise, and 68 percent believe it is impossible to solve extreme poverty in the foreseeable future. While in fact, starvation-level
poverty has decreased by 80 percent since 1970, according to economists at Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The truth is that while there is plenty to worry about on any given day, the world is generally getting better.

Fresh, comprehensive evidence of progress comes in the new Legatum Prosperity Index, based on data from 167 countries— with 99.4 percent of the world’s population —on 300 social and economic indicators of well-being. Across those dimensions, from 2009 to 2019, 148 of the 167 countries have seen net progress—much of it dramatic, and especially so among the poorest countries in the world.

Not all countries are improving, unfortunately, but here again there are important learning opportunities. In the past decade, 19 countries have deteriorated. The greatest declines came in Venezuela, Syria and Yemen.

In general, the index reveals that when countries fail to progress in the modern world, it is not due to their region or any population-specific characteristics. No one is destined for poverty. The problem is generally war, tyranny and poor governance, which is supported by circumstances
facing countries mentioned here.

There is still a great deal of work to be done around the world, but the good news from the Prosperity Index should be much more salient in our thinking.

Bad news doesn’t just hold our attention; it also demobilizes us because,
particularly when it concerns people far away, it suggests that disaster is inevitable, when in fact it is not. Hope—the belief that something can be done, and we can do it —inspires action. Bad news, especially in world poverty, often stimulates hopelessness, hence inaction.

The world is not getting worse; it is getting indisputably better for most countries and most people. Billions of people are freer, healthier and more prosperous than they would ever have been in human history. We should be thankful for that this holiday season, and resolve to push even harder.

Source: Columnist Arthur C.
Brooks, Washington Post