Pessimism or progress: What did you see in 2023?
In the sweep of history, what kind of a moment was 2023?
The year will no doubt be remembered for the grisly Hamas attack of Oct. 7 and the violence it unleashed.
But this was also the explosive first year of artificial intelligence surging into households and workplaces, hyperenergizing the race toward what may soon become one of the most powerful tools in human history – with all the existential fear and immense promise that implies.
On climate change, this was the year that China, easily the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, expanded its solar power capacity on such a historic scale as to keep prospects alive, if barely, for holding global warming within a relatively manageable 1.5 degrees Celsius.
This was the year that the accelerating global drop in extreme poverty – which has plunged by more than two-thirds since 2000 – resumed after its pandemic pause.
And this was the year of the recession that never came, despite always being forecast as just a few months away.
For most of us, 2023 was not the year we expected, or dreaded.
In the United States, we started the year with so little confidence in the economy that Gallup analysts called it “among the worst readings since the Great Recession.” Most Americans expected rising joblessness, high inflation, higher taxes, and a falling stock market. They weren’t crazy. In January, a Wall Street Journal survey of economists found 61% forecasting a recession for 2023.
Most Americans and all those economists, of course, were wrong.
Joblessness remains solidly in the zone that economists call “full employment,” meaning essentially that people who want a job can find one. From autoworkers to Hollywood screenwriters to hotel cleaning staff, employees have gained leverage. Even those managers who just want their now-remote workers to show up at the office a few days a week are often forced to back down. Inflation – though still above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target – is close to normal. We can’t know where the stock market will be by the time you’re reading this, but the S&P 500 neared the end of
