The Optimistic Economist

PRAGMATISM AND RESILIENCE

So how did Mokyr climb to such great intellectual heights? His origin story begins in Amsterdam during World War II.  

The Mokyr family after they moved to Haifa, Israel. From left, Joel; his sister (cousin by birth) Ada; Joel’s mother and grandmother; his brother, Rob; and his sister Miriam. Credit: Courtesy of Joel and Margalit Mokyr

Mokyr’s parents were Dutch Jews. In 1942 his parents and two older siblings were sent to Theresienstadt, a Nazi transit camp. They were liberated in 1945, but upon returning to the Netherlands, the family discovered that Mokyr’s aunt and uncle had died at Mauthausen in Austria. Mokyr’s parents had promised that, if they survived the war, they’d find and raise the couple’s baby daughter, who had been hidden by the Dutch resistance. His parents placed newspaper ads until they found her.  

Mokyr’s parents decided to have another child they could raise alongside their 3-year-old niece. Joel Mokyr was born July 26, 1946, 14 years after his brother and a decade after his sister. 

Soon after Mokyr was born, his father died of cancer, leaving behind a young family — and an extensive library on European and U.S. history. By age 5, Mokyr was reading his father’s books. “These were stories that happened,” Mokyr says. “I was utterly fascinated.”  

Margalit and Joel at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1968. Credit: Courtesy of Joel and Margalit Mokyr

When Mokyr was 9, his mother moved the family to Haifa, Israel. He learned Hebrew, finished school and completed his military service. He then attended Hebrew University of Jerusalem, majoring in economics and history. It’s also where he met his wife-to-be, Margalit.  

After completing his bachelor’s degree cum laude, Mokyr married Margalit, and they moved to New Haven, Conn., to study and work at Yale University. Joel earned his doctorate in economics, and Margalit was a senior lab researcher. They welcomed their first child, a daughter, in 1974. Later that year, the family landed in Chicago when Mokyr joined Northwestern’s economics department. They made their home in Skokie, Ill. With Joel’s support, Margalit completed her doctorate after the birth of their second daughter, finishing her dissertation in 22 months.   

“He already had tenure, so he cared for the baby and the house and even typed up my dissertation on a word processor,” Margalit says. “I got tenure at the University of Illinois Chicago shortly after that.” She became a full professor (now emerita) of biochemistry and molecular biology.  

“He’s smart, likes to cook and entertain, and is a great husband,” Margalit says of her spouse of 57 years.  

Mokyr, sitting nearby, feigns amazement: “You never told me that!”  

BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF GROWTH

With his thorough analysis of civilization’s histories, Mokyr has helped explain the economic and intellectual roots of technological progress in European societies and, more recently, China. His research has also focused on the global impact that industrialization and economic progress have had on the average human lifespan and quality of life. 

In the past, “people lived short, painful lives,” he says. “They were crawling with insects and on the verge of subsistence. If the harvest failed, famine would kill millions. Poor nutrition and childhood disease caused stunting, both physical and mental.” 

At a Northwestern symposium, Mokyr noted, “The last 150 years have been absolutely miraculous in the history of the human race. Living standards that would have been unimaginable in the 1870s have been attained not just by the very wealthy but, basically, by regular citizens. … We have doubled global average life expectancy.” In the 1870s the average lifespan was in the upper 30s, Mokyr explains. Today it is 76 for women and 71 for men. 

Some economists have theorized that the greatest period of economic growth is behind us — that the lower-hanging fruit of technological growth has already been picked, so to speak.  

With his irrepressible optimism, Mokyr takes the opposite view. “My argument is that science creates ladders,” he says. And with those ladders, “high-hanging fruits get easier to reach. And what’s more, the best fruits are at the top of the tree — and the tree is still growing.”  

Mokyr concedes that new technologies often come with unforeseen costs. “Plastic, asbestos, leaded gasoline — all are miraculous but have created major problems. Technology surprises you, sometimes in a negative way,” he says. “We must keep inventing to mitigate the side effects.” 

As old technologies and knowledge become obsolete, people may need to learn new skills. Many have expressed fears about the rise of AI and its potential to replace humans. For those who fear a dystopian future with robot overlords, Mokyr suggests they have been watching too many science fiction movies.  

“AI cannot replace human intelligence,” he says. “It can never incorporate human conditioning and drives. Can AI compose an original symphony under the weight of unrequited love like Berlioz? Can AI have nationalistic feelings or write a novel about what it’s like to be under the rule of another country?” 

Technology, he adds, is only a tool. “It’s never you. It’s always separate from you.”  

Ultimately Mokyr believes continued technological progress is the answer to the “unprecedented existential threats” facing humanity today, including climate change, future pandemics and an aging population coupled with a declining workforce. “The only solution is to adapt and invent ourselves around these problems,” Mokyr said during his Nobel Prize banquet speech. “History exemplifies how … ingenuity has solved the technical challenges of society, from smallpox vaccination … to cancer therapy. It must continue to do so — because any alternative will be disastrous.”