Countering objections to the concept of progress
The skeptics of progress are incorrect.
This article is part of my ongoing series on Progress Studies. You can read more on the topic in the following posts:
In this Substack column, I have written a series of articles, videos and podcasts showing evidence that we live in an era of great progress and that progress benefits the vast majority of mankind.
As a reminder, I use the following definition of progress in my book series: the sustained improvement in the material standard of living of a large group of people over a long period of time.
By any of dozens of metrics, we are better off materially than we have ever been in our history. If you do not believe me, then look at the metrics of economic growth, human development, freedom, slavery, poverty, agricultural production, literacy, diet, famines, sanitation, drinking water, life expectancy, neonatal mortality, disease, education, access to electricity, housing, and violence (to name just a few), and in virtually every nation. And there are plenty more in my book.
Countering objections to existence of progress
In this article, I want to counter many of the arguments that skeptics of progress make to refute the existence of human material progress. In almost all cases, they are not really addressing the issue directly, or they are merely giving a few counter-examples of bad things that are going on in the world today.
Just pointing to a few examples where progress takes place is no more definitive than pointing to a few examples where progress does not take place. We must look for overall trends over a time duration and population size that are meaningful.
Projections of the future do not count. I am astounded by the number of people who argue against progress by pointing to a negative trend that some expert or organization predicts for the future. Those who do so seem to believe that experts’ predictions of the future are infallible.
Far from it. In fact, based on the best study that we have on the topic, expert predictions of the future are no more accurate than random guesses. Expert predictions may turn our correct, but they may also turn out incorrect. We will not know for quite some time. For this reason, I largely ignore predictions of the future. I only look backward to see what has already happened.
One year is not a long enough time period to measure progress. Many skeptics of progress point to bad events that happened this year or this month. Progress generally consists of long-term processes that take decades or centuries to realize themselves. Within those longer time periods, there are plenty of short-term, temporary dips. When one looks at any individual year, it is very difficult to discern whether it is a new downward trend or another short-term and temporary dip.
Many Greens object that I ignore the negative effects of humanity and prosperity on the natural environment. They make the moral claim that we should be more concerned about protecting the natural environment than promoting human material progress. That may or may not be true (I disagree strongly), but this in no way disproves the existence of human material progress.
Because I focus on human material progress, I do not examine trends within the natural environment. Progress is entirely compatible with environmental destruction. It is also compatible with a healthier environment. Human progress and the natural environment are completely different concepts that are only tangentially related. In this column, I will not deal with the environment (at least for now).
Many of those on the Left object to my claims because they are very concerned about the unequal distribution of the benefits of progress. Inequality is not a valid argument against the existence of human material progress. It is entirely possible to have progress along with increasing inequality. It is also possible to have progress with greater equality.
Just like environmental destruction, inequality is a completely separate topic from progress. As long as the vast majority benefit from progress, the fact that some people benefit more than others, does not invalidate the fact that progress has occurred. Just like the Green, many of those on the Left want their favored goal to trump all concerns for promoting human material progress. They may or may not be morally correct (I disagree strongly), but even if they are correct, this in no way disproves the existence of human material progress.
Progress is also entirely compatible with bad events. The critics of progress are correct in that wars, epidemics, famines, depressions, political disorder and other negative events have happened in recent years. They are incorrect in the assumption that the mere existence of these bad events undermines the possibility of progress. I argue that there has been clear evidence of progress even while these other negative events have taken place.
Progress does not, and indeed cannot, eliminate all problems. Progress often enables us to adapt to problems or lessen their severity. Progress in one area often uncovers less severe problems in other areas. Sometimes those problems are actually more severe than the original problem. Sometimes the more we solve problems, the more noticeable and inconvenient other problems become. This is all true, but this does not mean that progress does not exist.
Progress is not the same as utopia. Indeed, I will argue that the quest for utopia undermines progress. Utopians compare societies to an ideal that exists only in their brain. I compare societies with how they were previously and to other societies at the same time period. No matter how much of humanity experiences progress, problems will always exist. Utopia will never be achieved.
Progress is also compatible with entire nations or sub-national groups not being part of it. This is a variation of the inequality argument that I addressed above. Certainly, there are communities, cities, regions, and countries that have not taken part in progress. It will always be possible to drill down into the data to find examples of groups where progress has not taken place.
But identifying exceptions to the trend does not disprove the trend. More importantly, there have been many examples of populations who experienced no progress in the past suddenly being transformed within one generation. There is no reason to believe that a specific population will be locked out of progress forever.
Now it is perfectly fine to agree that human material progress, but that other goals are more important. But that is very different from refusing to acknowledge the existence of progress. I think the vast majority of people, even the skeptics, accept the existence of human material progress once they think of it.
The roots of progress skepticism
I have no problem with what I call “normal people” being skeptical of progress. Human material progress is a concept that most people do not think about in their daily lives. It is not reasonable to expect them to have a fully thought-through viewpoint. The vast majority of those people are open to discussion and will look at the facts at least somewhat objectively. I am confident that when shown the data, they will at least somewhat shift their viewpoint, though making it the centerpiece of their thinking is unlikely in the short run.
My real objections are the ideologues who make skepticism of progress a moral badge of their courage. I believe that those skeptics are playing an intellectual game, where they pretend to not believe in the existence of human material progress because they do not want to deal with a real discussion as to whether it should be a prime goal for our society to promote. They would rather stick to pretending that there are no moral trade-offs between their cherished goals and something more important.
It is easier to pretend to not believe in human material progress than it is to explain why it should not be a prime goal for our society. They are lying to avoid confronting the darkness that their ideology leads society towards. It is easier to believe that progress is a fairy tale rather than confront that their own views lead to dystopia.
If after reading the above, you are still skeptical of human material progress, then I challenge you to a debate. Post a comment within the linked article on why you are skeptical.
This article is part of my ongoing series on Progress Studies. You can read more on the topic in the following posts: