Real and tangible abundance

What would you respond if you have a survey in front of you asking:

Do you think humankind is moving towards:

A) building a prosperous and egalitarian society? or

B) destroying humankind balance and long-term sustainability?

I am convinced my response is option A. The paradox is that option B is likely to be the highest frequency response. Some materials confirm the existence of the negative bias in our minds, including an article published by The Guardian in 2015 which indicates 71% of respondents in a survey think “declinism” is the world´s leading trend. The Guardian´s article also explains the negative thinking is driven by a psychological trick of the mind, in which we are prone to view the past favorably while having a pessimistic view of the future.

The negative bias is as real and tangible as abundance. Fair enough, if we think about the groundswell of negative news daily mapped by our brains. Nonetheless, we all should be aware that the media, as well as the individuals who spread negative information in search of ratings, profits or likes, are suffering myopia. This myopia only enables the bad and the negative to be the top of mind and gloomy preconceived ideas to stick harder to our minds, even though a world of preeminent abundance is real and tangible. I will provide my arguments to support this statement.

My attempt is not to build an overoptimistic or naive argument around prosperity and abundance. I acknowledge the pervasive effects of corruption and violence in today´s society. More so because I was born and raised in Colombia, where corruption and violence have fractured for decades our institutions and social fabric. I also acknowledge the large inequality related to gender, religion, race, sexual preferences, and power which continuously results in excessive intolerance fueling terrorism.

When I think about the roots of corruption, violence and inequality, I conclude the causes are related to 1) education, 2) health and 3) wealth distribution. Here is why: The absence of education, allows for concentration of power and oppression which in turn allows for higher levels of corruption and poverty. The absence of health, hampers our productivity and innovation potential, which creates setbacks in turning well-being massive. The absence of appropriate wealth distribution, drives economic and political exclusion and limits the access of large populations to information and productive assets. This translates into higher rates of poverty and hence, resentment and violence. Is not Colombia a good example of this?

My conviction on abundance is backed by incontrovertible evidence confirming worldwide improvements in education, health and wealth distribution. This progress is enabling us to open up frontiers in science and human wellbeing. The following are some examples of advancement in the three sources of abundance:

Education.

According to Our World in Data, the world´s literacy rate decreased from 79% in 1900 to 15% in 2014. This is important because a literate population can get decent jobs and have better lives. While literacy is not a solution to poverty or any societal challenge, it does equip an individual to process information, to conduct a more thorough decision-making process, and to have larger control of her life.

Education not only entails academic milestones. It also comprises our cultural and civic learnings. Colombia not only increased its literacy rate in 12 percentage points over the last decade, achieving a 94% of literate adults in 2011. It has also shed light on cultural and civil education improvements with underlying effects. Antanas Mockus, one of the superior intellectual and political leaders in Colombia, has always supported his leadership on education. Over his two terms as Bogotá Mayor, he executed a political strategy fully based on education. After his second term (2001–2003), the homicide rate in the city dropped 70%. Also, multiple civic values fostered through education campaigns are still promoted by some citizens, despite the lack of continuity of Mockus´ strategy. No Mayor has been able to replicate such results. Perhaps, no other Mayor has understood education as one of the roots of our greatest challenges.

Health.

Today, we rest assured that our families will enjoy a healthy life and will be able to take advantage of the enhancement opportunities implied in health. However, we forget that some decades ago a large portion of the world was fighting against leprosy, rubella, or malaria. These diseases have been eradicated or their global eradication is underway. Incidentally, we can proudly say that the malaria eradication endeavor has been led by the Colombian immunologist Manuel Elkin Patarroyo. Having such disease eradication, means that the children who never crashed with some of these high-risk diseases are instead exercising, going to school and becoming a new seed for development.

Also, Hans Rosling, the marvelous Swedish statistician confirms in a Ted talk that our health systems are gradually driving the population structure towards smaller and healthier families which results in longer life expectancy. Developing countries is where health is improving the most. The healthier our communities are, the more productive, creative, and prosperous these can be. You can have a look at Rosling´s Ted talk here.

Colombia´s health system is far from being effective. It has gone through several shocks in recent decades including colossal abuses to the SISBEN (national public health subsidy program). In spite of the recent backdrop, Colombia has reported undeniable improvements in health in the long-term picture. The local life expectancy went up from 49 years old in 1950 to 78 years old in 2015.

Having longer lives is meaningful as this enhances our ability to create value for our families and communities. This value is exponential when built upon our experience and wisdom gained through life. Just think about yourself. How do you compare with the version of you ten of twenty years ago? Are you capable of achieving greater milestones today? Are you bringing larger cultural and economic value to you and your family today? Are you executing on a plan that will bring prosperity for you and those you love in the next decades? If you agreed, note this is possible because you are continuously collecting experience and wisdom along your way, now that having a longer and healthier life is possible.

Wealth distribution.

Let´s look centuries back. The governance and social ladder was comprised of one single family driving a monarchy and having complete control of power and wealth. The vote was limited to few landholders and burgesses. Women did not have a voice, netiher in politic representation, nor through their vote. The middle class did not exist. The large majority lived in poverty and thousands lived under slavery. Massive groups with different religious or sexual orientation were bloodshed. Whatever abuses conducted by the monarchy were not categorized as corruption given that those were accepted (by force). As our population has improved its education and health, the middle class emerged, slavery is no longer legal, human rights became a worldwide mandate, democratic regimes spread across the globe, and inequality is purposely battled.

In 1988, world´s statistics pointed out large income gaps between rich and poor countries with more than half of the poor countries population living below the poverty line. In 2011, people living in poverty in those countries is less than 25%. In some cases, this percentage is lower than 10% and continues to drop faster than ever. This is an evergreen trend. According to World Bank figures, 250,000 people overcome extreme poverty every day. This is important because each of these people are no longer focused on making ends meet, but rather focused on building a medium-term plan to improve their housing or send their children to school. They may also be spending their small capital in short-term pleasures but ultimately, that is a trade-off allowed by their increased access to capital. Having the chance to have a trade-off and take decisions is what truly clears out improvement in incomes in all parts of the world.

Likewise, Colombia is much richer than ever before. Multi-dimensional poverty measured through income, access to health, education and other basic services, improved 40 percentage points over the last 20 years. Also, our Colombian families in the 50´s, rarely had the means to have one of their children obtaining a graduate or post-graduate degree. They did not even think about this given that the objective seemed unattainable. Today, a vast amount of our families has graduates among them, post-graduate degrees are gradually becoming the rule and we have our first generation of Colombian PhDs. This elucidates our improvement in equality as advancements beyond K-12 education in developing countries is mostly accessible for the middle class, and the middle class is the optimum reflection of equality.

World´s improvements in education, health and wealth distribution are allowing us to live in the midst of an all-time-high abundance. We can see this when consciously looking around. Today, we have the right to vote to elect our leaders, women are actively gaining space in political and corporate governance, and our populations are better educated, healthier and richer. We have the means to point out corruption and violence and the freedom to directly or indirectly act against them. We can always act if we want because we are free today. We have access to the massive wave of collective wisdom on the internet, and to a myriad means to connect with people around the globe and be fully informed. We take all this for granted but this was inaccessible just a few generations back.

Our current abundance is also setting the stage for the greatest leaps forward of humankind. Renewable energy is gradually becoming mainstream thus helping us replace fossil fuels and reduce our carbon footprint which is the largest environmental threat. We can now send a drone with medicines or vaccines to remote villages demonstrating we can tackle disease dissemination in every spot of the world. Biotechnologists can buy a gene over the internet and use it to develop organisms that can help us significantly reduce industrial waste. Our access to information and technology is boosting movements such as the circular economy and collaborative economy to transform the way we exchange and trade goods and services having far-reaching benefits on the world´s sustainability. Most operating systems are now in shape to provide traceability and transparency for all the stakeholders interacting in them. This provides the world the information required to take decisions that will continue to boost exponential improvements.

With all this in mind, I can imagine far into the future and life is still abundant. In that imaginary, the world is far from perfect, some of our current issues have been solved and new ones have arisen but the overall result of the equation is abundance extended to every single human being.

Mariángela Ramírez

Written by

Impact investment professional, Colombian and Tica, supporter of social development, equality, and green/sustainable trends.

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