[anthonyb]

> The poor themselves decided en masse to move from village to city at the time, which seems to indicate the contrary.

You have the same mechanism at work today, in slums in India, South America and so on. The draw is the possibility of being better off and having more opportunity than you would in a rural area, but it doesn't always end up that way.

But we're getting off the point, which is that a free market doesn't give you "unprecedented human health and prosperity" - the best that you can argue is that it's one of the preconditions (but not the only one).