Until about two hundred years ago, almost everyone faced the prospect of a life that was poor, nasty, brutish, and short, with few if any prospects for betterment. For example, in today’s money, annual average per-capita income during the first millennium was constant at about $500. And most of the next century saw little in the way of expanded opportunities. Indeed, until the early nineteenth century, annual average per-capita income was only a couple of hundred dollars higher, and the average per-capita growth rate barely increased above zero.
Why have societies so consistently failed to generate high standards of living and why, even today, do so many societies live far from the frontier of the developed world’s economic possibilities?
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