The Rational Pessimist

Sunday Times bestselling author Matt Ridley’s rousing follow-up to The Rational Optimist, exploring the regulatory, political, cultural, and bureaucratic barriers preventing us from harnessing our true potential, and how limitless innovation and prosperity is well within reach – if only we get out of our own way.

It is a terrible time to be alive. It’s also the least bad time to be alive. Yes, there are plagues, wars, dictators, and economic and political collapse, but there is also enormous prosperity. Across the world, lifespans are lengthening, infant mortality is falling, and famine has receded. Wealth, health, knowledge, leisure and even peace and equality (yes!) have been surging; and yet, the attitude towards our future has been one of despair.

The Rational Pessimist is a wild tour through the unexpected innovations of the past twenty-five years: the rise of social media, mobile everything, satnav, drones, and more. As Matt Ridley reminds us, if we stop demonizing the very things that have been the engines of progress – coal, oil, and gas; the free-market; western enlightenment – we can create an extraordinary future based on the values of the past that have delivered us to our prosperous present. From bungled public health policies and inept governmental communications to misguided energy policies and fear-mongering scientists, to a fiercely judgmental and censorious education system, Ridley argues that our pessimism is largely self-inflicted.

Laced with Ridley’s signature snark and wit, The Rational Pessimist is a blistering, passionate argument about how to save the future (and ourselves) from the malign efforts of technophobes, degrowth activists, crony capitalists, regulatory beadles, eco-crazies, culture warriors, conspiracy theorists, and purveyors of superstition. We could keep wringing our hands in despair, he argues, or we could truly unleash innovation and thrive beyond our wildest dreams. The choice is ours.

Reviews

Praise for Matt Ridley's The Rational Optimist:

‘A triumphant blast on the vuvuzela of common sense’ Boris Johnson

‘A glorious defence of our species… a devastating rebuke to humanity's self-haters’ Sunday Times

‘No other book has argued with such brilliance against the automatic pessimism that prevails’ Ian McEwan

‘His theory is, in a way, the glorious offspring that would result if Charles Darwin’s ideas were mated with those of Adam Smith’ Economist

‘Original, clever and controversial’ Guardian

‘As a work of bold historical positivity it is to be welcomed. At every point cheerfulness keeps breaking through’ The Times

About the author

Matt Ridley’s books – including The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist, The Evolution of Everything, How Innovation Works, and most recently, Viral: the Search for the Origin of Covid-19 (with Alina Chan) – have sold over a million copies, been translated into 31 languages, and won awards. He was a member of the House of Lords from 2013 to 2021 and was founding chairman of the International Centre for Life in Newcastle. He created the ‘Mind and Matter’ column in The Wall Street Journal in 2010 and was a columnist for The Times. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Ridley lives in Northumberland, UK.