How Prosperity Can Promote Virtue

...He looks, too, at societies that have made little progress (Ghana, Jamaica...

...Although worrying about whether one is keeping up with one's peers can sap the pleasures of increasing standards of living, the author suggests that rapid improvements can more than compensate...

...Strident advocacy of the virtues of economic growth is often associated with the belief that growth proceeds naturally if government just gets out of the way...

...that coincided with the culmination of the post-World War II expansion— and his own coming of age...

...These show people tend to be happier when they have reached levels of material welfare exceeding the expectations of their youth or their perception of others'levelsof comfort...

...Friedman's treatment is grounded in the theories of Smith, Anne-RobertJacques Turgot and other observers of early industrialization in Western Europe...

...WHILE The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth is impressive in its scope as well as its attention to particular business cycles and political movements, I found the author's effort to provide empirical substantiation for his convictions not entirely persuasive...

...He contrasts current circumstances in nations that began to experience rapid growth during the last half century (South Korea, Thailand) with those faced by previous generations...

...Moreover, they noted a correspondence between the spread of commerce and of civility toward strangers—a connection that has received strong support from recent cross-cultural behavioral experiments conducted by the anthropologists Joseph Henrich, Jean Ensminger and their colleagues...

...civil rights for women...

...It presents a subtle, wide-ranging argument that economic growth not only boosts material living standards but promotes moral improvement...

...Skeptics might also object that the role of exogenous political shocks, such as the revolutions of 1848 and the World Wars of the 20th century, is neglected in Friedman's accounting...

...But the author, not content with this fact alone, sharpens his focus by claiming reforms were typically adopted during the most rapid phases of growth...

...His thoughts on how to fund government operations, and to manage the cost of the Social Security and Medicare programs, are familiar, if not routine...

...In elaborating a logic for his argument, Friedman makes creative use of work by economists, psychologists and sociologists who compile studies of individual self-assessments...

...When people are suffering the effects of stagnant economies or other pressures on living standards, he says, they are reluctant to share privileges with the disadvantaged...

...He is obviously troubled by the all too prevalent stagnation of living standards in the leading industrialized economies over the last two decades, and he may have intended this book to sound the alarm...

...Even if Friedman may not convince everyone that economic growth is necessary or sufficient for a moral society, he does provide a compelling case for why societies at all stages of development should strive to realize or sustain increases in living standards for the bulk of the population...

...offers another prominent counterexample: It burgeoned in the 1850s, a decade when two sharp economic contractions and a massive inflow of Irish immigrants led to a virtual languishing of real wages in the North...

...In any event, people who have more resources at their disposal than expected are likely to be more generous in some form of assistance to the less fortunate, Friedman maintains, thus establishing the theoretical link between economic growth and a particular direction of institutional change...

...The expansion of civil rights Friedman expects with rapid development may not be immediate, but other benefits are more than sufficient to warrant policies aimed at stimulating growth...

...Those astute witnesses to the initial stirrings of sustained economic growth proposed that societies adapted their political and legal institutions in response to changes wrought by independent economic forces, such as population increase, expanding markets and advances in technology...

...It is easy to understand why...

...Yes, some increase in inequality may accompany the early stages of growth, but rapid economic growth is the most effective way of reducing poverty...

...The antislavery movement in the U.S...

...Reviewed by Kenneth L. Sokoloff Professor of economics, University of California, Los Angeles The idea of a natural harmony governing the world, whereby material benefits are also morally good and vice versa, has long exerted a powerful attraction...

...That period does seem to fit the story well, but it is not necessarily representative...

...For those anxious about the impact of growth on the environment in developing nations, the evidence indicates that its onset is normally followed by improvement in key areas over the long term...

...Here he drives home the central message of the volume: An educational system that expands or preserves wide access to economic opportunity and political voice not only contributes to a moral society, but is also a vital feature of the process of self-sustaining economic growth...

...The restoration of broad-based economic growth in the U.S., he believes, is essential to maintaining its character as an open, tolerant and democratic society, and the government's role in bringing this about is crucial...

...Friedman traces the evolution of institutions in the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany at the core of his vision of a moral society: broad public schooling...

...welfare programs for the poor, elderly and otherwise needy...

...Friedman highlights what is at stake in the developing world...

...Friedman, however, offers a more sophisticated view...

...As he himself concedes, the Great Depression years challenge the idea that progressive institutional changes are generally implemented in periods of rapid growth, and rarely when times are bad...

...The passion comes in his treatment of the decline of American public education...

...South Korea and Jamaica had roughly equivalent levels of per capita income 25 years ago, but they now offer their people radically different environments, standards of living and life choices...

...This perspective became popular during the 18th-century Enlightenment, when evidence that laws hold sway over the physical realm led many to embrace the view that there is a natural self-regulating order to the universe conducive to progress...

...universal suffrage...

...Hence those like Montesquieu, who were impressed with the enormous wealth being generated in the New World by the large slave plantations producing sugar, offered a rationale—racist in character—for why slavery might be considered moral...

...It is indisputable that these innovations were pioneered by the first countries to industrialize and tended to be strengthened whenever they chalked up further gains in per capita income...

...Some readers may wonder whether he has been too influenced by the profound expansion of civil rights and access to opportunity in the U.S...

...He buttresses this conclusion by making the fairly conventional point that when an economy is booming elites have a greater interest in tapping the potential of an underutilized segment of the population...

...Benjamin M. Friedman's new book continues the Enlightenment tradition...

...In the concluding chapter, Friedman discusses the economic issues confronting the United States, and offers advice on policy...

...Recognizing that notions of what constitutes a moral society vary widely, the author is explicit about what he regards as its central elements: "openness of opportunity, tolerance, economic and social mobility, fairness, and democracy...

...Perhaps because the modern media have increased awareness of how people in different societies live, citizens of countries with higherper capita incomes on average judge themselves happier than those of less prosperous countries...

...Life's decisions and judgments would be much simpler if actions that were good in one respect were good in all respects, and those that were detrimental in one significant dimension had no offsetting advantages in other arenas...

...Another believer in a natural harmony, Adam Smith, who was disturbed by the cruelty of a system he judged to be fundamentally immoral, struggled to explain how slavery could be inefficient yet still flourish in competition with free labor...

...And he is rather devastating in his rebuttal of those who question whether the benefits of economic growth justify incurring its consequences...