ABSTRACT
The seven years that we described above may well turn out to be the end of several eras at once. First of all, they mark the end of an era that started about 250 years ago in which Western societies embarked on a project of overcoming poverty by creating new sources of wealth. It was what has often been called the ‘Industrial Age,’ which at the same time became a ‘Free Market Age.’ It entailed the transition from what had been (by and large) a ‘zero-sum economy’ for millennia, to an economy of new wealth creation, which Deirdre McCloskey has called ‘the Great Enrichment’ 1 and can also be called the ‘Escape from Poverty Project.’ 2 Through a mixture of technology, the division of labor/specialization, entrepreneurship, trade, and the growing availability of cheap labor (the ‘working class’ within Europe, slavery outside Europe), energy and raw materials, it turned out to be possible to escape widespread poverty and to create the “wealth of nations,” as the herald of this new age, Adam Smith, called it in his 1776 landmark book. What he actually meant was wealth for “the different ranks of the people.” Now it became possible, Smith claimed, for the standard of living of “an industrious and frugal peasant [to exceed] that of many an African king.” 3
