“Prosperity comes from everybody working for everybody else.”
Matt Ridley:
Throughout history, the engine of human progress has been the meeting and mating of ideas to make new ideas. It’s not important how clever individuals are.
If we pull back and take a long-horizon perspective, the free exchange between people of goods, services and especially ideas leads to trust between strangers and prosperity for more people.
Think of it as ideas having sex.
Exchange is to cultural evolution as sex is to biological evolution.
Matt Ridley’s TED presentation: When ideas have sex
Matt Ridley’s mating of ideas at Scientific American.