This year the U.S. celebrates its 250th anniversary, which is great! But the birth of capitalism is even more significant because it changed the world far more than has the U.S. and this country would not exist as it is without the birth of capitalism. Capitalism lifted a starving world out of poverty to wealth impossible to imagine before. From prehistory until the 17th century, the entire planet was mired in frequent episodes of mass starvation due to famines. There was very little improvement in living standards for 10,000 years. Europeans were hardly better off than the Egyptians who built the pyramids. Capitalism ended that misery and lifted living standards for the first time in history. See the hockey stick graph of per capita GDP for an illustration.
