Interesting point at the end about the inverse correlation between means-value and ends-value. But I'm not sure I buy it. Health and human rights seem to have more means-value than Rosling gives them credit for.

Even an exploitative factory owner wants workers to be somewhat healthy so that he can hire lots of them, and so that there will be more competition between prospective workers (which keeps wages down). And human rights seem like a prerequisite for maximizing a society's creative output. I suppose frightened and brutalized people can do agricultural or factory work, but I doubt they can do great physics.