The West’s “embrace of economic freedom and creative destruction, both legally and culturally — what economist Deirdre McCloskey calls the idea of bourgeois dignity and liberty — led to a rise in real income per head in 2010 prices from about $2-3 a day in 1800 worldwide to over $100 today.”

Everything you need to know about the power of economic freedom in 3 charts

By James Pethokoukis, The American, 18 February 2012