The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves

Blurb

The Rational Optimist is a 2010 popular science book by Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen. The book primarily focuses on the benefits of the innate human tendency to trade goods and services. Ridley argues that this trait is the source of human prosperity, and that as people increasingly specialize in their skill sets, we will have increased trade and even more prosperity.
Ridley promoted similar ideas in a TED talk called "when ideas have sex"