What kings and barons could have in the Middle Ages, everyone can have tomorrow. The goal of a $3,000-a- year personal income is foreseeable in relatively short order for all save the people in a small minority of Third World states. Even they will be lifted to the $3,000-a-year category in time.

Singer begins by establishing some broad facts about the nature of wealth. We are accustomed to thinking of wealth in terms of gold, oil, growing forests, fertile farmland, and big power plants. We put great stress on the base metals, such as iron and bauxite, or on a steady wood supply. But Singer says that fear that we will run out of crucial metals and forest products is part of a big “edifice of error.” There is plenty of iron in the ground and plenty of bauxite for aluminum. The cheap metals cost less than ten cents a pound. Copper is “sort of in the middle,” as Singer expresses it. But whether cheap or in the middle, metals make up so small a percentage of modern wealth that they have little effect in determining prices. What is important about modern wealth is that it consists mainly of ideas.

The way to get rich, says Singer, is to learn. He quotes a Mexican cab driver as saying, “Poverty is the result of people not knowing how to do anything.” We are more productive than the people of Abraham Lincoln’s time because we know more. And what one person knows, another may copy.

Singer attributes the building of the “edifice of error” to a Self-constituted elite—a “new class”—that he calls the “University-Oriented Americans.” These combine a conviction of intellectual superiority with a generally low morale about their country and the world. The common people, in contradistinction to the UOA elite, have a high morale.

Singer conveniently arranges his thoughts about the UOA and the ordinary citizen in two columns. According to the low-morale ideas in Column A, the world is divided into rich nations and poor nations. World population is growing faster than ever and is out of control. The U.S. is wastefully using a disproportionate share of the world’s treasures, and eventually these treasures will be used up. In wasting the resources the U.S. is exploiting poor nations.

Continuing the Column A lament, Singer says the UOA elite considers modern technology to be very dangerous and getting harder to control. People working for profits cannot be trusted. They are not idealists. They don’t help produce a fairer income distribution or encourage the extension of democracy.

All of the low-morale ideas in Column A, says Singer, are wrong. Actually (see his Column B), the world is moving quickly toward a time when most, if not all, nations will be rich. India and China, even with their huge populations, will be among them. Some nations are moving faster through a transition than others. World population will level off in a way that will not cause harmful crowding. Modern technology is a major reason why dangers to health have decreased so rapidly.

As for profits, people who work for them are just as trustworthy as those working for other motives. Our country is an apt vehicle to express idealism, for it is full of people who care about real results. Many countries take inspiration from us even though they have their own definitions of democracy. So much for Column B.

The pollution problem worries Singer, but only because too many people are percentage-point perfectionists about it. We’ll never have skies that are completely free of ozone hazards. But we can do much to inhibit the spread of carbon dioxide. Every tree that is planted helps. To gain perspective, Singer amuses himself by asking, “How clean is your house?” It could be kept cleaner and neater, but maybe you have children. How dangerous is your house? It could have more smoke detectors. How many burglar alarms do you have? Is your electrical wiring properly grounded? Do you have “grab bars” to protect against falling in the bathtub? You do your best to check on these items, and so strengthen your house investment over the years. But you can’t spend twenty- odd hours a day on the subject. The point is that our homes are as clean and neat and safe as we choose to make them.

The same is true of the larger environment. The coal supply could stand cleaning up. But if we don’t reach absolute perfection, it isn’t going to make much difference to our health. Life spans will still increase.

Singer is, however, worried about what he calls sneaky pollutions. One such was the sneaky pollution of scurvy. It was not until scientists had learned things about vitamin C that the British Navy prescribed limes for its sailors, and it was a full forty years before the merchant marine got similar treatment.

Singer’s book is written largely in terms of high abstraction. He forces his readers to supply the names of his University-Oriented Americans who contribute to the edifice of error. He does not identify any of his prime culprits. They could be faculties at Stanford or Berkeley or the University of Chicago. He could have been much more graphic if he had simply said “Harvard—or Yale, or Princeton—hates America” and then gone on to name the individual projectors of the hatred.