A Remarkable Year

You can only judge how significant events in a single year are with the benefit of hindsight. I think we are now far enough away from 1776 to say it was a remarkably influential year. Three things all happened in that year which have really helped shape our modern world. In no particular order they were:

1. The American Declaration of Indepedence which built on the philosophy published by Thomas Paine in Common Sense earlier in the year. This marked the effective beginning of democratic government.

2. Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations which is still one of the building blocks of economic thought and our reliance on markets.

3. The first two steam engines built by James Watt were commissioned marking the real start of the fossil fuel era.

These three themes of democracy, markets and fossil fuels still dominate Western life. I wonder how long that will remain the case.