The author nit-picks some of the numbers, noting that the poverty numbers prior to some date are unreliable. But this is all meaningless as the numbers aren't Pinker's point. The point is that society is getting richer and both relative and absolute poverty is dropping across the world.<p>I think most reasonable people would believe this to be true. Those of us old enough remember a time where we didn't have the luxuries we have today. We had a choice of three channels on television, paid exorbitant long distance fees to call our family abroad and rarely traveled by plane. And that changed over the last 100 years or so. Surely on a larger time-scale we would notice even greater change (indoor plumbing, air conditioning, antibiotics, food safety).<p>But the author doesn't see that:<p>> As to my actual claims about the past, my argument was straightforward. I simply pointed out that we cannot ignore the fact that the period 1820 to circa 1950 was one of violent dispossession across much of the global South. If you have read any colonial history, you will know colonizers had immense difficulty getting people to work on their mines and plantations. As it turns out, people tended to prefer their subsistence lifestyles, and wages were not high enough to induce them to leave. Colonizers had to coerce people into the labour market: imposing taxes, enclosing commons and constraining access to food, or just outright forcing people off their land.<p>Yes, people joined the urbanization movement but only did so kicking and screaming. They were perfectly happy living subsistence lifestyles.<p>This strikes me as not only wrong but somewhat offensive. I don't know anything about the author but I don't think he lives or has lived a subsistence lifestyle, and neither have I. But from everything I read from less ideologically minded researchers, it was a brutal existence. It is a lot easier to live this subsistence lifestyle today. The world is still a large place. You can easily buy a cabin in the woods and avoid taxes. Ironically, the capitalist system the author likes to criticize promotes property rights that allows for living off the grid.<p>So I welcome the author the chance to grasp his full potential and go off the grid. He and his followers could buy 100 acres in Texas for 75k, and pay only $500 in annual tax [0].<p>[0] <a href="https://www.landwatch.com/Hudspeth-County-Texas-Land-for-sale/pid/333134274" rel="nofollow">https://www.landwatch.com/Hudspeth-County-Texas-Land-for-sal...</a>