Chart of the greatest and most remarkable achievement in human history

Mary Perry at AEI writes:

Everybody’s featuring their “graphs and charts of the year,” like The Atlantic and theWashington Post (be sure to see Vice-President Joe Biden’s “Graph of the Year” on Amtrak ridership). Well, the chart above could perhaps qualify as the “chart of the century” because it illustrates one of the most remarkable achievements in human history: the 80% reduction in world poverty in only 36 years, from 26.8% of the world’s population living on $1 or less (in 1987 dollars) in 1970 to only 5.4% in 2006.

And what has been the major reason for this huge success?

So what did that? What accounts for that? United Nations? US foreign aid? The International Monetary Fund? Central planning? No.

It was globalization, free trade, the boom in international entrepreneurship. 

Yet so many who profess to care about the poor fight so hard against free trade.