[First published at EveryJoe.com.]
You might not think of yourself as wealthy. Let me prove that you are.
In 1836, the richest man in the world was Nathan Rothschild. He was 58 years old and, according to a medical check-up at the beginning of the year, in good condition for a man of his age.
Nathan’s father had started a bank in Germany, and each of his five sons went to a different European capital in order to build up the family business. In London, Nathan proved to be a genius at finance and transformed himself into the world’s most wealthy man.
He was part of a new trend in human history. For the first time ever in Europe, most of the richest people in the world were businessmen rather than politicians and aristocrats. That is, they became rich through producing goods, trading, and investing — rather than by taxing people or conquering them and taking their stuff.
Another new trend was rising life-expectancy numbers. In the young United States of America, in the 1830s life expectancy was around 35 for males and 37 for females. It was a little higher in Europe.
Those were low numbers still, and much of that was due to high infant-mortality rates. In London, before the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s, half to three-quarters of all babies died in their first year.
So at age 58, Nathan Rothschild was beating the odds and could afford the best healthcare in the world.
But he called his doctors back in the spring. He was bothered by a boil on his lower back. His doctors tried some things, but Nathan’s condition got worse. England’s best specialists were brought in. Nathan worsened. Specialists were brought in from Germany, then a rising medical nation. All to no avail – Nathan Rothschild died on July 28.
Medical forensics in the twentieth century revealed that Nathan died of simple blood poisoning. Bacteria from the pus in his boil got into his bloodstream, most likely because his doctors poked at it, spread rapidly, and killed him.
Twentieth-century medicine also tells us that if Nathan had taken perhaps a dozen antibiotic pills, he would have survived.
This is one indication of how rich we are. Almost none of us dies of blood poisoning anymore. If we get an infection, we can afford cheap antibiotics to solve the problem. 180 years ago, the richest man in the world couldn’t get his hands on antibiotics to save his life.
Of course that was because they hadn’t been invented yet. Nor was the germ theory of disease discovered yet. Nor was antiseptic theory. The application of modern chemistry to pharmaceuticals was in its infancy.
But by the early 1900s, germ theory and antiseptic were established, pharmaceuticals had been revolutionized, and in London in 1928 Alexander Fleming made the first antibiotic, penicillin.
That was ninety years too late for Rothschild, but consider the effects for those of us born since then.
Life expectancy now for American males is about 78 and continues to rise. For females it’s over 80. Infant mortality rates in the developed world have plummeted to about one in 200.
So how rich are you? One measure of wealth is how much of that most precious asset you have: Time. As an average American or European, you have over twice as much life time as those in Nathan Rothschild’s era. And your babies will probably not die in infancy.
For the most part, we take better health and longer life for granted, and that’s part of the good life – not having to worry about many things. But long life does not happen by magic, so it is also important to know what makes it possible. Especially in the free and open democratic-republic we aspire to be, it’s important that most of us have some understanding of what makes the good stuff in our society possible.
The doubling of life expectancy is a unique phenomenon in human history. For tens of thousands of years, all over the world life expectancy was in the 20s or 30s. But starting around 1800, first in Europe, then in North America, and then in a few other parts of the world, it started to rise dramatically. Why?
One important part of the answer is science. 600 years ago, science barely existed, and it was often under assault by the forces of dogmatic forms of traditionalism, fearful superstition, and established religion. In many cultures, intellectual curiosity continues to be snuffed out, especially in the young. But in parts of western Europe, free-thinking and a culture of experiment and open argument prevailed – and the rise of physics, chemistry, and biology soon followed.
Engineering is another part of the answer. Tinkering and inventing are, I think, built into human nature, but very few cultures make technological development central to their way of being. Most spectacularly, only about 250 years ago, England launched its industrial revolution, and many countries learned from it and soon followed.
Business culture – all of those scientific discoveries and engineering innovations need to be translated into consumer goods. The development of large-scale manufacturing, logistics and distribution networks to make the goods widely available, heavy competition on cost, quantity, and quality, employment mobility and the increasingly global competition for talent – all of that is very new to human history and, again, first started in a few European nations, the Dutch and the English most notably.
Widespread education about nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle is also part of the explanation. Educated individuals make healthier choices. The commitment to widespread literacy, numeracy, and the other elements of a well-rounded education – again first happened in a few countries and only recently.
And of course, all of that take a lot of money. Science and engineering are expensive – all those Ph.D. researchers and their well-stocked laboratories. International logistics networks are pricey. Enabling children to learn in schools for many years is a huge investment. Where does all the money come from? Only wealthy cultures can develop sophisticated science, engineering, business, and education institutions — and only entrepreneurial, free-market-friendly cultures can become wealthy.
So there’s an interesting and important past-looking question for all of us: What happened a few hundred years ago that enabled us to develop a science-engineering-business-education-wealth-generating culture?
But also there is a future-looking question for all of us democratic-republican-libertarians as we debate the policies that will affect the life expectancy of our children and grandchildren: Does the proposed reform build upon or undercut the culture that enabled the great progress we have made so far?
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Stephen Hicks is the author of Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault and of Nietzsche and the Nazis. He blogs at www.StephenHicks.org.
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