Why Here, Why Now? Why Did United States Enjoy Dramatic Improvements in Living During the Last Century?

Uncommon Knowledge

Hoover Institution

Politics, History, News:politics, Science, News

4.8 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2019

⏱️ 73 minutes

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Summary

Recorded on April 18, 2019 Peter Robinson opens the session by discussing the major improvements that happened over the last one hundred years in the United States, between 1919 and 2019. For example, the GDP per person rose by 760 percent, life expectancy improved from 59 to 79 years, and various other automotive, technological, medical, and quality-of-life advances were achieved. Robinson then starts the discussion with former secretary of state George Shultz, who encourages a broader vision as we look for the reasons for prosperity. Shultz discusses some of the major events that occurred during the 20th century, e.g., the Great Depression, currency manipulation, World War II, and the Holocaust, whose negative impacts framed the mindset of Americans to question the institutions underlying society. Robinson then asks John Cogan about these institutions—private property, the rule of law, free markets—and the importance of these for prosperity. Cogan explains those institutions are necessary for sustained prosperity, which demands conditions that are stable in order to fuel economic growth. Robinson asks Terry Anderson about the importance of property rights. Terry says that property rights are the key to providing people with incentives to care for and maintain the property they own. Anderson notes that nobody washes rental cars, because they don’t own them. Robinson asks Lee Ohanian about the role of immigration in prosperity. Ohanian says that the United States has been fortunate in attracting the best talents from all over the world, which has played a major role in sustaining prosperity. Ohanian notes that having an inflow of immigrants like Sergey Brin from Soviet Union, Elon Musk from South Africa, and others has helped the United States stay on the cutting edge of innovation with new and fresh ideas.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Uncommon Knowledge. I'm Peter Robinson. In this episode we taped a discussion in the
0:05.9	Halk Auditorium at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. The topic, prosperity in the 20th century, two statistics and the list.
0:16.0	Here's the first statistic, gross domestic product per person in real terms that is adjusted for inflation.
0:21.0	1919, which was the year the Hoover Institution was founded by the way, $7,500.
0:28.6	Today, a century later, $57,000. That's an increase in GDP per person of some 760 percent.
0:37.0	Here's the second statistic. Life expectancy in the United States in 19, 55 years. Today Today one century later 79 years and now here's the list the telephone
0:48.5	electricity the automobile antibiotics air travel the personal computer, all developed at a scale large enough
0:55.0	to make them available to ordinary citizens right here in the United States during
0:59.7	the past century.
1:02.4	Dramatic increases in income and life expectancy, a long list of improvements that
1:07.9	changed our ordinary lives. Why did it happen here? Why in the United States? Why during the 20th century?
1:17.0	With me during this discussion for economists, John Kogan, Leohanian, and Terry Anderson, and George Schultz, you'll know as a former Secretary of State,
1:27.0	but he was and remains a trained and practicing economist.
1:31.0	Uncommon knowledge now.
1:34.0	We have here four professional economists. We've been talking among ourselves about the
1:47.3	topic over the last several days. Three of our panelists tend to think of the question in just those terms, economics.
1:57.0	One of our panelists keeps saying we need to think bigger, broadenened the scope.
2:03.2	And the first question will go to that panelist.
2:08.0	Born in 1920, George Schultz has occupied 99 of the 100 years that we are marking this evening. George the very first question how should we think about prosperity?
2:31.0	Well I think we have to remember.
2:33.0	1919 is an interesting year.
2:37.0	That was the end of World War I.
	...

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