50 Things That Made The Modern Economy

With Tim Harford

In 1981, in Nampoola, Mozambique, a young Swedish doctor, Hans Rosling, was puzzled.

More and more people were coming to his clinic, suffering from paralysis in their legs.

Could it be an outbreak of polio?

No, the symptoms were not in any textbook.

With Mozambique slipping into a civil war, might it be chemical weapons?

He packed his wife and young children off to safety and continued his investigations.

The resolution of the mystery sheds light not just on paralysis of the legs, but on one

of the biggest economic questions.

Why do humans have an economy at all?

Let's return to Mozambique in due course.

First an outback adventure.

In 1860, Robert Birk and William Willes led the first European expedition across the

interior of Australia.

Birk, Willes and their companion John King ran out of food on the return journey.

They became stranded at a stream called Cooper's Creek.

This is what William Willes wrote.

We have been unable to leave the creek.

Both camels are dead and our provisions are done.

We are trying to live the best way we can, like the blacks, but find it hard work.

By the blacks, Willes meant the local Yandruwondra people, who seemed to thrive despite conditions

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