Human Rights

10. Population explosion, resources and environment

Summary of Acemoglu

o Most increase has been in less prosperous parts of world

o Increasing demands on environment caused by population explosion - worries that we will outgrow our planet's ability to support us

o Resources, fossil fuel consumption and increasing levels of carbon dioxide in atmosphere

All of these trends interrelate, some emanating from others. Technological change, which is dependent on political institutions, lies at the root of economic growth. According to Acemoglu, there are both positive trends such as improving healthcare and economic growth, as well as negative trends, including inequality and pollution. The rights revolution is at the core of all the trends because it has driven all others over the past 100 years. We have witnessed a transition to inclusive political institutions that not only protect property rights but promote the incentives and participation of a broad majority of the world population. As a result of these institutions, breakthroughs in technology have occured, leading to health improvements, higher life expectancy, sustained economic growth and the shift of work from agriculture to services.

His predictions for the future:

• Global pollution will get much worse
• Islamic regimes will fall
• War could go away
• The rebirth of US manufacturing
• People will have longer/healthier lives
• Robots will replace manufacturers/ farmers
• Middle class will keep diminishing
• Global economy will prosper
• We'll have automated cars
• Democracy will recede

8. Century of war,

Century of peace

o 20th century - major wars killing millions including two most deadly conflicts in history

o Subsequent 60 years have been the most peaceful throughout our recorded history - shown by total number of deaths from international wars

o Overall trend towards less violence, although evident that their is still violence/civil wars in many parts of the world g

9. Counter-Enlightenment in Politics

7. Technology without borders

Human Development Index (HDI)

o Fascism and communism – rose in first half of 20th century, unleashed unprecedented violence - WW2 vanquished Nazism, lingered in some countries until 1970;s

o Last 4 decades have witnessed increasing prevalence of religion in politics - Fundamentalist Christians, uttra-Orthodox Judaism, Islam in the Middle East, North Africa & South Asia - forecast of upcoming "clash of civilizations" ("war on terror" - George W. Bush)

6. Health Revolution

o More integrated world – because of communication technologies

o Trade policies: International trade, globalization of technology and production

o Possibilities for outsourcing and offshoring tasks enables firms to lower wages around the world

o Enabled more rapid growth in economies such as China - able to leverage abundant low-wage labor

What is it? The HDI combines statistics of life expectancy, education, and income to assess the development of a country, including both social and economic development. It is an alternative to more common, purely economic assessments of a countries development. 187 countries were including in the 2012 HDI. The number of countries included in the HDI depends on the amount of available reliable and comparable data for all three indices of the Index.

• Health has improved dramatically in world as a whole over last 100 years
• Life expectancy at birth increased dramatically
• Major health innovations and diffusion throughout the world

Education Component

Income Component

Trends in Human Development

To measure this component, the average of years of schooling for adults aged 25 years is calculated, as well as the expected years of schooling for children of school entering age.

Income is measured by Gross national Income per capita, which is provided by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Where do these numbers come from? For mean years of schooling, data and statistics are collected from UNESCO Institute for Statistics database and Barro and Lee. The expected years of schooling is based on enrollment by age at all levels of education and population of official school age for each level of education

3. Unrelenting Growth

Daron Acemoglu

Life Expectancy at birth

The data for life expectancy at birth is provided by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Measuring the life expectancies at birth allows us have an idea about the health development of a particular country.

• Sustained economic growth in a sustained and steady manner
• Emanated from technological breakthroughs

5. Transformation of work and wages

4. Uneven Growth

• Rights revolution intertwined with development of technology, economic growth
• Lists ten major trends of last 100 years, which define our social, economic and political lives
• Makes predictions for what the world will look like 100 years from now

• Economic growth has not been even among countries
• Widened gap between rich and poor
• Nuanced when looking at population-weighted numbers – rapid growth of several populous nations
• Consequence of uneven spread of inclusive institutions throughout the world

o Technological changes have transformed nature of work

o Agriculture declined in advanced economies in 19th century & has begun to decline in less-developed economies as well

o Manufacturing has also started to decline, replaced by service sector

o Disappearance of many middle-skill, manual and routine jobs - causing even more unequal income distributions (US)

o Tasks that were once performed domestically are now performed where labor is cheap (China)

o Widening gap between 90th and 10th percentiles and even between 90th and 50th percentiles of US earning distribution

o Increasing disparity within nations - OPPOSITE OF WHAT ROSLING CLAIMS

Steven Pinker - The Surprising Decline in Violence

2. Sweep of Technology

Common Understanding: Modernity has brought us terrible violence, native people were in a state of harmony

• Pace of new gadgets, techniques and products introduced in last century has surpassed that of industrial revolution
• Advances in information technology e.g. Internet
• Breakthrough drugs and medical technologies,
• Household innovations e.g. indoor plumbing, refrigerators, lighting, tv, radio
• Entertainment & culinary
• Travel and transportation

According to Pinker, this common understand it WRONG. He claims : "Ancestors were far more violent than we are, violence has been in decline throughout history and today we are probably living in the most peaceful time of our species existence"

What does this mean?

-Impact of these technologies permeate every aspect of our social lives

-These technologies would not have been possible without rights revolution and incentives, freedoms, opportunities provided by inclusive institutions

1. The Rights Revolution:

o Masses have shown they can have an intelligent say in politics

o Jose Ortega y Gasset: warned dangers of widespread participation in government

o Lippmann: specialized class must make decisions

o Advancement of rights is also with women, religious, ethnic and sexual minorities

o Majority of population still lives under authoritarian government – pursue policies serving interest of narrow elite rather than people at large

o Unparalleled expansion of civil and political rights (incomplete) has had an impact on lives of billions

2. Sweep of technology:

o Pace of new gadgets, techniques and products introduced in last century has surpassed that of industrial revolution

o Breakthrough drugs and medical technologies, indoor plumbing, refrigerators, lighting, tv

o Impact of these technologies permeate every aspect of our social lives