You are the one percent

You, yes you, are more than likely in the top 1% of the wealthiest humans to have ever lived.

Don’t believe me? Let’s do some calculations and see.

The Population Reference Bureau in Washington, D.C. estimates that about 107 billion humans have been born since “Homo sapiens” first appeared about 50,000 years ago. So, that means the richest one percent of people to ever live includes about 1.07 billion people.

There are an estimated 6.97 billion people alive today, so that leaves about 100 billion who have already gone on to greener pastures. How many of those 100 billion who have already died are among the richest 1% in history?

A few, certainly, but very very few. The worldwide standard of living has increased so much over the last generation that only the exorbitantly wealthy from previous generations would qualify. Economist David Henderson estimates that about 20 million people now dead would have ranked in the top 1%. I’d imagine this number seems incredibly low to most folks, but you have to remember even the most majestic royalty from a few generations back didn’t have the benefit of automobiles, airplanes, televisions, and the like. If you measure wealth by standard of living, then most of us are wealthier than the royalty of the past. Yeah, kings could summon royal musicians to play music, but they couldn’t have imagined an ipod. The wealthiest person alive even in 1950 didn’t have nearly the ease of access to information that the internet now provides much of the world, including everyone reading this diary entry. In short, while there have certainly been some spectacularly wealthy people in history, there’s no way the wealthiest of wealthy could have enjoyed the technology that we enjoy today, regardless of their relative wealth to their peers. And that technology makes up for a lot.

Still, for prosperity’s sake, I’ll more than double Henderson’s estimate and say that 50 million of the richest 1% in history have already died. That would mean that about 1.02 billion of the richest 1% are still alive today.

Estimates show that about 1 billion people currently live in “high-income countries” such as the United States, Japan, Canada, and most European countries. Throw in the richest 200 million of the remaining countries and you have your top 1% of humans ever to have lived. Which, yes, you are one of.

I’ll concede you can quibble with my numbers and estimates here, especially in the last paragraph, but even the biggest quibbler could only get me to concede that any person reading this is probably in the top TWO percent in history. Which still isn’t too shabby, yeah?

Now, don’t misconstrue the point of this diary entry. Does this mean we shouldn’t be outraged over governments sometimes favoring their wealthy backers through bailouts and pork barrel spending? Of course not. We should still fight back against injustice and we will. But it’s always nice to keep a little perspective in mind and appreciate that you are one of the wealthiest people to have ever lived.