Someone asked me to back up my claim that since 1976 China has lifted more humans out of poverty than all of nations combined in the entirety of human history. Since it would be hard to go back to Greek and Persian times I made an executive choice (capricious no doubt) to begin with the year 1500.

Global population was estimated tobe between 450-500 million world wide and fully 90% lived in dire, subsistence poverty. You can google those numbers, they are everywhere. So, 50 million humans were not poor at this time. Way to go humanity!

By the year 1900 the worldwide population had grown to between 1.6 to 2 billion. Of those, fully 75% lived in dire subsistence or industrial poverty. Yes, the incipient industrial revolultion had lifted about a quarter out of poverty, some into a middle class, but most fabulously wealthy. At this time between 400-500 million people were not poor. Better but still shitty.

Now, lets talk about China between 1976 and 2018: their standard of living multiplied 26 times. While the United States lifted 28 million people out of poverty between 1945 and 1975, China lifted 800 million people out of poverty between 1976 and 2018.

Now, go back and do the math between 1500-1975 and compare world growth versus Chinese growth between 1976-2018. My claim may not be 100% accurate but it is damn close.