A Hard Look at Freedom

This is a graph of the standard of living since the birth of Christ. As you can plainly see, it was essentially a flat line until the 1800s. And while we can obviously never know with certitude what the cause of this upturn was, it does seem rather convincing that it started to mushroom at the very same time that free markets, economic liberalization, free trade, the industrial revolution, and liberty also developed. I mean, I know that this is a difficult thing for the socialists to accept (right on the heels of their ideology crashing and burning some 20 years ago) and all but, hey, if Bono can do it....