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| Richard Kelo |
The biggest killer in all of human history has been hunger. Nature is inherently scarce and very stingy with her resources. Rick Kelo points out that only through peaceful trade with our fellow man have people advanced to the point where obesity, not starvation, is the main killer.
"When populations began to rise in 16th century England, and that change in the supply/demand curve pushed food prices up. Prices reached the point it became profitable for farmers to invest in agricultural technology to get more out of their harvest. That increased availability in food encouraged more population growth and so on," explains Rick Kelo.
Richard Kelo is a Chicago tax recruiter by day, but in his spare time also maintains a prominent position in the forefront of certain economic debates. Well read in economic history, and himself educated on both topics at West Point, Rick is quick to point out that only by cooperating have people overcome the scarcity of the natural world.
"If any of us wandered off a trail in the park our stomachs would tell us after just a few hours in the woods just how scarce food is," Rick Kelo notes. The way mankind overcame this scarcity was by using markets - peaceful trade - to guide production decisions.
"To finish the case of England," Rick Kelo continues, "That increased productivity eventually brought down prices, which encouraged farmers to spend more and more money investing in ways to make farms more productive. That higher volume production allowed the farmer to break even from lower prices... lower prices meant everybody else had extra money left over to buy "stuff" with. And so on it went as man got even more and more efficient."
Thus the story of how the economic incentives that naturally exist in the free market inspired mankind to overcome the cruelty of nature to the point that starvation... the leading cause of death in all of human history... has been wiped out in capitalist societies.
