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Friedman begins with an intellectual history of the idea of progress itself. Aristotle, Descartes, Smith, Turgot, Rousseau, Comte, Calvin, the Puritans, Augustine, Burnet, Edwards, Montesquieu, Carlyle, Ruskin, Marx and Engels, they are all here and more to boot. In Friedman's tour through the history of ideas, one is reminded that while there may be some new things under the sun, the writer of Ecclesiastes was not far from the mark: there is not a whole lot that is new.
Adam Smith wrote, "Before we can feel much for others, we must in some measure be at ease ourselves. If our own misery pinches us very severely, we have no leisure to attend to that of our neighbour." This is Friedman's point. He quotes Comte: "all human progress, political, moral or intellectual, is inseparable from material progression," which is a variation on Friedman's thesis as well.
Critics of Friedman's argument (that growth is good) did not arrive upon the scene in the 1970s with the small-is-beautiful counterculture. More than a century earlier, Carlyle wrote with distaste about the "cash nexus" that connected people in a market economy. John Ruskin, had he lived long enough, presumably would not even have taken a train to Davos to join the anti-free trade protesters in Switzerland. He considered train travel not "traveling at all; it is merely 'being sent' to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel." What Ruskin would have thought about air travel in and out of LaGuardia, O'Hare, and Atlanta-Hartsfield today we can well imagine.
As I read Friedman's book, I wondered how many of my colleagues in the dismal science could differentiate between premillenialism and postmillenialism. Friedman can, and shows why it is important. Indeed, religion is important, if not central, to his survey of the idea of progress. (Friedman thanks William Hutchison at the Harvard Divinity School for assisting him in his research.)
The historical core of Friedman's book (chapters 5-8) involves a retelling of U.S. history (primarily from 1865 on), with an eye to whether periods of growth had positive moral consequences and periods of stagnation had negative moral consequences. These chapters are a mix of economic history and political history. (A reader unacquainted with U.S. history during this period would find these chapters an efficient way to become educated.) To further buttress his hypothesis, Friedman (in chapters 9-11) examines economic and moral trends England, France, and Germany.
Impatient readers may jump to chapter 12, "Economics and Politics in the Developing World," where Friedman shows that his hypothesis about the positive relationship between economic growth and morality is not confined to the Western world. Data shown in this chapter reveal that economic growth and political freedom are related, with some exceptions (such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia). Friedman also reminds us that, because of the phenomenon of compound interest, policies that bring about only modest changes in economic growth rates can generate sizable gains in living conditions over time.
Friedman's discussion of international trade (especially in chapter 14, "Growth and Equality") is a thoughtful response to the opponents of globalization. Most economists have long known that the poorest countries typically are the ones with the least amount of trade with other countries, undercutting the argument that trade extracts wealth from underdeveloped countries and transfers it to the West. Friedman's analysis and evidence is in the mainstream. Regarding child labor, he concludes: "The evidence . . . shows that most child labor . . . is used not in manufacturing, but in agriculture, where the work is harder and the opportunities for schooling even more limited." As a consequence, Western-imposed restrictions on child labor may have perverse consequences; indeed, economies that trade tend to have less child labor. Friedman concludes that globalization benefits countries that trade. The recent strategy of China and India to open their borders will do far more to help their citizens than the strategy of Myanmar and North Korea to isolate themselves from trade.
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