Your definition has many good things going for it, as you point out above. Here are my concerns, though…
1). Improved material standard of living could show an increase even as we become more miserable. Divorce rates skyrocketing, children raised without father figures, huge numbers of people living off handouts with no gainful occupation or skill, substantial increases in substance abuse and mental health issues, fear of crime, fear of terrorism or war, drops in trustworthiness, loneliness, inability to meet friends or romantic interests, drops in intelligence, and so forth. I could go on for hours, but the point should be obvious that it is possible to see increases in material standard of living and decreases in health, happiness, spiritual well being, emotional well being, and many other things that really matter. This gets increasingly likely as incomes go up. Yes, a person living off a dollar a day is likely greatly improved by going to $50k per year, but I am not sure it matters as much going up the next $50k, and less for every increase afterward. Your measure is simply inadequate, and in a way reminds me of the person looking for their keys under the street light. Easy isn’t necessarily best.
2. Progress isn’t just about a large group over a long time, it is about humanity in total. If we break it down to smaller groups we run into the problem of zero sum actions between groups. If the Romans see a long term increase in material living standards and the Carthaginian’s see a drop (or are just exterminated), this isn’t progress. It is external exploitation, which is as far from progress as we can get. Granted, it can be useful to look at measures of progress at smaller groupings, but only when also monitoring that the growth in some didn’t come at the expense of others. This leads into the response I still owe you on "Coordination" which is IMO an essential part of progress, and the piece most often derailing it (with coordination a broader term than the more obvious, but too limited, cooperation).
3. I would suggest that a better (albeit less measurable) definition is simply "The longer term flourishing of humanity." This certainly includes GDP, but it also includes longevity, health, wealth, measures of emotional well being, intelligence, compassion, trust, happiness, peace, freedom from crime, opportunity, equality of opportunity, self actualization, environmental quality, and so on. Although this lacks in ease of measurement, it gains in that people can apply their own values to the measure. And any measure that doesn’t match up to our (often differing) values is suspect.
One last point, at the risk of detailing the conversation, is that I have come to find that it is useful for everyone involved if I break progress down into two types. First, or Type 1 Progress is progress in function or Knowldge. This is what we see sometimes (not always) in evolution, and what we see in technology. Progress in function/Knowldge thus can apply beyond humans, and it isn’t rare in our history. However, T1 Progress does not necessarily lead to Type 2 which is progress in outcome or welfare or well being. This is extremely rare, with the only species wide version ever occurring in last 250 years or so.
The benefit of dividing the two types is that people see technological and scientific knowledge progressing everywhere, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to improved welfare due to Malthusian forces, negative side effects and zero sum interactions (WWII).
Thanks so much for your detailed comments. I appreciate that you obviously took the time to read my article and think about it thoroughly. There is a lot going on here, so I will probably miss some of your point. Hopefully, I address the main ones.
1) You are correct.
Much of what you mention is happening. I am skeptical that they are happening because of material progress, but it is happening. I do not think any of that undermines the possibility of material progress. I believe I addressed this in the article.
You are correct in stating that we should not assume that human material progress leads only to good things. That is an empirical question that needs to be addressed.
I disagree that my measurement is inadequate. Take a look at all the metrics that I listed in the article. Do you really believe that those things do not matter? I doubt it. My guess is that almost all people would choose more progress by any of those metrics, and yet very few people had that choice in the past. I think what you are actually saying is that my definition and metrics do not capture everything that is good.
You are correct. I would never argue that human material progress is the only thing that matters. Only that it is important enough to investigate systematically.
2) I have no problem with the concept of progress being applied to humanity, as long as one does not go to the extreme of saying "unless everyone is experiencing progress, then no one is."
Yes, we can run into zero-sum effects, particularly before the Industrial Revolution. The Rome-Carthage example that you gave is an excellent on. And it is what most of humanity lived in before progress started. That is exactly why material progress is so important.
I think it is very possible to speak of progress within nations or sub-national groups. That is exactly what most development metrics and economic does. It is also what you do in your list of problems in the first paragraph.
3) My next post, by coincidence, addresses exactly this point. Let's hold off discussing until tomorrow.
I do not think that "The longer term flourishing of humanity" improves my definition at all. Much of your list is already included in my list, and the rest is all very subjective. Worst, many of those additional items will conflict with each other, whereas my metrics are very closely correlated.
I am not sure that I understand your final point about Type 1 and Type 2 progress. Are you referring to intensive and extension growth?
Anyway, thanks for the comment. This is exactly the kind of discussion that Progress Studies needs.
Just to clarify… Type 1 progress is progress in technology, science, sports performance, evolutionary functions and knowledge. Technology, for example, has made steady progress on countless dimensions for 10k years, but this never led to improved human flourishing, even by your measure (it did lead to more humans).
Type 2 is flourishing (my def) or material flourishing (your def), and is something which has only shown up in the last ten generations of humanity. This leads to the question of what changed to enable flourishing in last 250 years? I think you and I would broadly agree on the answers.
I don't quite understand your comment about technological progress for 10K years. MM's essay on 1/10/24 on agriculture may clarify this, too, but over that time only biomass fed muscle power was available, along with wood used for smaller scale ceramics and metallurgy (black smithing). Real Tech Progress seems to have required using high density forms of fuel, such as coal (and later oil) to jump over the Malthusian rachet on food production, etc. That, coupled (perhaps) with the printing press leading to greater literacy and demand for "brain power" over muscle power. This helped larger scale use of metals (particularly iron/steel/brass/bronze), and in turn increased the focus on higher and higher quality machining of metals.
Not the total answer by any means, but somewhere I did read that the performance of the early Otto cycle engines was substantially improved just by increasing the machining tolerances used to fabricate the component parts (bearings, seals, and cylinders and rings, mostly, I suspect).
Yes. My point was that there was incremental improvements in thousands of fields for thousands of years, but not fast enough to outrun Malthusian forces and other headwinds. Thus technology "progressed" for millennia but human welfare did not improve. It is possible to get technological and knowledge progress without getting progress in human material living standards. Did that clarify at all?
I agree with that, but I would rephrase it a little.
Humans have always had technological innovation. That is a hallmark of humanity.
Humans have also experienced change since at least the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago, but it was too slow for anyone to experience an increased standard of living within their lifetime.
Therefore, it was change, not progress. Progress is much more recent.
"I disagree that my measurement is inadequate. Take a look at all the metrics that I listed in the article. Do you really believe that those things do not matter? I doubt it. My guess is that almost all people would choose more progress by any of those metrics, and yet very few people had that choice in the past. I think what you are actually saying is that my definition and metrics do not capture everything that is good."
Yes, I am saying that GDP, and the various things you mentioned which can be measured, and the various things I mentioned (which can probably be measured too), all matter. And when I combine all the things people want or could want or will want some day, I don’t think “improved material standing-of-living” as a definition captures it. It doesn’t capture it now, and it will be increasingly inadequate going forward.
"You are correct. I would never argue that human material progress is the only thing that matters. Only that it is important enough to investigate systematically."
Yes, I would even say that it is one of the most important things. But it is a subset of progress, not Progress.
One final point, I think that some values will conflict, as will some goals, and some strategies and tactics. This makes measurement really hard, especially when people change their goals and values and standards over time. But I don’t think we gain by oversimplifying this field to gain measurement clarity.
I can see where you are coming from, but I do not think that we will ever be able all understand “the things people want or could want or will want some day” or be able to investigate it thoroughly.
I do not think that Progress Studies should be trying to invent a new religion, ideology or philosophy. I think what you are trying to accomplish is far beyond what can be achieved. Just narrowing down to material progress is complicated enough for me.
Simplifying is essential for understanding. I think as long as we understand that material progress is not everything good, then I do not see that as a problem. It is Progress studies, not Everything studies. If material progress is only 33% of what is good, it is still worth studying.
Anyway, thanks for the incisive comments. I know that many people who are interested in progress agree more with you than with me.
I agree that material progress is worth studying and that you are helping to lead the charge in doing so. I believe there is also value in researching the broader topic, and that doing so shouldn’t be (and doesn’t have to be) a religious or philosophical pursuit.
I still think it is premature because I don’t write consistently. On top of that, I am really not a good writer.
I am retired. I previously ran new product development and innovation for a very large financial company, but now basically spend my time surfing (waves mainly, but the internet too I guess). When I worked, my forte was leading teams of people. I was the idea guy, the person who could envision a different world and make it come about by directing the rest of the company to make it a reality. The Marketing department supplied my writers!
In the meantime, I hope you don’t mind me providing input to your thoughts. I am in awe of your knowledge, and hope my thoughts and responses add some value. Honestly, the stuff you put together is light years ahead of the rest of the formal progress movement. Hopefully I am far enough along on the journey of studying the topic that I can recognize genius in others.
This is an input not an output. Anecdotally, high and possibly even middle school students in America from a century ago were better educated than college students today.
Frankly it seems many public schools in America are becoming little more than a combination of day care and political indoctrination. I'm not sure if the Third World has the same problem, but wouldn't be surprised.
Good point. I suspect there are quite a few measures of quantitative inputs of a material nature that become stand-ins for desired outputs. Or at least they may be required precursors towards the preferred final end. Thus achieving them is "progress" of a sort as well?
Thanks Michael for writing this. I agree that having a definition that is useful as a concept (and also useful in that a large portion of the community adopts it!) would be very helpful.
I think your definition gets at a lot of the important elements of progress, and I like that it has an empirical flavour to it. As you say, it's good to be able to actually apply a definition and see where it does and doesn't fit in history. I also like that it's fairly simple.
I do have a few scattered thoughts about your definition:
1) As your discussion here in the comments with @Swami highlighted, I think that focusing on material progress is practical, yet also feels like it is missing something along the lines of the non-material that progress can bring. From my understanding of your post, you want to focus on material progress since it's already rich/complicated enough that layering on more would be too big of a challenge. I just wonder if divorcing the definition of progress from anything non-material will make it less appealing as a field of study?
2) The discussion of "human flourishing" as a definition versus yours makes me wonder if we need both. Your definition is much more specific, clear, and seems easier to form measures of progress using it. However, I must admit that I'm sympathetic to progress as human flourishing for the sole reason that this is what we want progress to enable, right? If we are successful in raising the material standard of living of everyone on Earth to the point where everyone can live comfortably, then I would hope this leads to more human flourishing. With your definition, progress enables human flourishing, but human flourishing isn't progress itself. I suspect people might not want to give up on the human flourishing part, even if it makes the definition more complex. (Basically, I'm thinking of appending to your definition, "...to enable human flourishing.")
3) You bring up a good point about having a definition that we can readily communicate to people. What I've been wondering over the last few days is if all of these definitional issues come down to what abstraction level we're talking about. In other words: How would you define progress to a 6 year old? To a high school student? To a college student? To a normal adult who doesn't know economics or doesn't have a sense of history? To someone with a lot of experience looking at trends of human well-being over time? To another person who works within this field of progress studies? I think it would be natural if the definitions get more complex and technical as we move up the ladder of abstraction.
4) I'm super sympathetic to your desire to turn progress studies into a field of social science. I wonder how you think progress studies as a field differs from progress as a movement or ideology (because that seems to also be happening at the moment)? Then, it wouldn't surprise me if the definitions would start to differ since the starting motivation would be different.
Your post left me with a lot to think about, so thanks again. I may have to write something myself on the issue after I've thought about it some more...
As for point 4, I do not want progress to be an ideology. I think so many movements and ideologies have hijacked the concept for PR purposes that it has lost its meaning. Ideologies obsess over an idea and how to implement the idea.
I believe that a focus on RESULTS is the key to sorting through all the BS. It is fine if you think that you have a solution, but you need to test it out in the real world.
A focus on results also explains why studying history is so key to Progress Studies. We should look at the results of what has been tried in the past, and see common themes that run through both the successes and the failures. Then do more of what works, and look at the results, and iterate. Most importantly, do less of what has repeatedly failed, which I believe is what most ideologies want to do.
Ideologies start with an idea and supporters do not care about results. They just keep repeating the same failure over and over. Any failure is just a sign that one needs to try harder.
Progress Studies should look at the results, and then constructing ideas that help us to understand what works.
Yes, I agree with you that "divorcing the definition of progress from anything non-material will make it less appealing as a field of study" I do not think, however, that it is a good reason to change the definition of progress to something impossible to falsify or measure.
Perhaps those people would be more interested in studying religion, ideology and philosophy.
I would be much more amendable to research on "human flourishing" within Progress Studies if their proponents gave me a widely accessible metric that measures the concept.
The closest that I know of is "self-reported happiness", but whenever I bring that up with them, they are not satisfied. If so, then I think the field of psychology has made discoveries that should be built upon:
I fear that anything short of such a metric will devolve into just repeating the same points made by religion, ideology and philosophy and embedding all those ancient struggles into the definition of progress.
The result will be no "progress" on studying progress.
I definitely agree with you that having a good metric that captures "human flourishing" would be a big step in making this a viable foundation for progress studies. Or at the very least, one way to get at the concept of progress. Because you're right: it's difficult to just vaguely gesture towards "something" that's supposed to represent human flourishing, since nobody will agree!
I love that you are taking this seriously and asking great questions. You bring up so many good points, I am also going to have to think about it.
My initial impressions are that you are correct in everything that you say.
As I think more about the issue, I am starting to think that we need two separate concepts: human material progress and human flourishing. They are likely related, but we should not assume so before thoroughly investigating.
I really want to keep the study of material progress as a cornerstone of Progress Studies. It would be more of an Applied Social Science, like medical research. This point was made by Cowen and Collison in their original article.
I have no problem with another sub-discipline within Progress Studies studying Human Flourishing in a similar methodical way. The key is that we clearly define our terms. Otherwise we cannot communicate with each other.
I will write more later when I have had time to think.
I have no problem with the criteria you selected for defining progress; nor the base definition itself.
But I do wonder if the "improvement in the material standard-of-living ..." hides some of the other aspects of "progress" as addressed via Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Some of the more abstract benefits of satisfactory psychological well being depend on material based enhancements but go beyond them, as well. And I suspect they are part of what many people think of when they consider "progress". But they are also clearly subjective and variable across a population. And therefore maybe difficult to quantify? [but psych is NOT my area of expertise].
I agree that measurability is a core and important criteria, but perhaps sometimes inputs have to be used as surrogates for presumed outputs? The more I think about what you are pursuing here with Progress Studies the more I recognize the subtleties that are or will make it more difficult to achieve status as a social science. The goal of improving social "whatever" is laudatory, but probably gets more complicated as you move up the Maslow Hierarchy?
And, yes, it is perfectly fine to use inputs as surrogates for outputs when that is the only data available. One example might be years education. When doing so, however, one must remember that it is a surrogate and that the correlation between the input and the output might not be as straightforward as anticipated.
That is why I do not advocate for a vague definition like “human flourishing” or including the top levels of the Maslow Hierarchy. I do not claim that they do not matter. Only that the material progress matters a lot and can be studied in a relatively objective way.
I doubt Progress Studies will ever become as “hard” as physics, chemistry, biology or even economics. I do think that we can become a social science like political science (my original field). But we are going to have to work hard to get there.
I also think that we can study the effect of material progress on, for example, happiness. I have another post on that:
I am also interested in some of the other psychological effects of material progress, and I will post on this issue. It is important not to assume that all effects of material progress are good. I think some might well be bad, but like the invention of the automobile leading to car crashes, which led to seatbelts and airbags, we might be able to mitigate the negative effects.
Your definition has many good things going for it, as you point out above. Here are my concerns, though…
1). Improved material standard of living could show an increase even as we become more miserable. Divorce rates skyrocketing, children raised without father figures, huge numbers of people living off handouts with no gainful occupation or skill, substantial increases in substance abuse and mental health issues, fear of crime, fear of terrorism or war, drops in trustworthiness, loneliness, inability to meet friends or romantic interests, drops in intelligence, and so forth. I could go on for hours, but the point should be obvious that it is possible to see increases in material standard of living and decreases in health, happiness, spiritual well being, emotional well being, and many other things that really matter. This gets increasingly likely as incomes go up. Yes, a person living off a dollar a day is likely greatly improved by going to $50k per year, but I am not sure it matters as much going up the next $50k, and less for every increase afterward. Your measure is simply inadequate, and in a way reminds me of the person looking for their keys under the street light. Easy isn’t necessarily best.
2. Progress isn’t just about a large group over a long time, it is about humanity in total. If we break it down to smaller groups we run into the problem of zero sum actions between groups. If the Romans see a long term increase in material living standards and the Carthaginian’s see a drop (or are just exterminated), this isn’t progress. It is external exploitation, which is as far from progress as we can get. Granted, it can be useful to look at measures of progress at smaller groupings, but only when also monitoring that the growth in some didn’t come at the expense of others. This leads into the response I still owe you on "Coordination" which is IMO an essential part of progress, and the piece most often derailing it (with coordination a broader term than the more obvious, but too limited, cooperation).
3. I would suggest that a better (albeit less measurable) definition is simply "The longer term flourishing of humanity." This certainly includes GDP, but it also includes longevity, health, wealth, measures of emotional well being, intelligence, compassion, trust, happiness, peace, freedom from crime, opportunity, equality of opportunity, self actualization, environmental quality, and so on. Although this lacks in ease of measurement, it gains in that people can apply their own values to the measure. And any measure that doesn’t match up to our (often differing) values is suspect.
One last point, at the risk of detailing the conversation, is that I have come to find that it is useful for everyone involved if I break progress down into two types. First, or Type 1 Progress is progress in function or Knowldge. This is what we see sometimes (not always) in evolution, and what we see in technology. Progress in function/Knowldge thus can apply beyond humans, and it isn’t rare in our history. However, T1 Progress does not necessarily lead to Type 2 which is progress in outcome or welfare or well being. This is extremely rare, with the only species wide version ever occurring in last 250 years or so.
The benefit of dividing the two types is that people see technological and scientific knowledge progressing everywhere, but it doesn’t necessarily lead to improved welfare due to Malthusian forces, negative side effects and zero sum interactions (WWII).
Thanks so much for your detailed comments. I appreciate that you obviously took the time to read my article and think about it thoroughly. There is a lot going on here, so I will probably miss some of your point. Hopefully, I address the main ones.
1) You are correct.
Much of what you mention is happening. I am skeptical that they are happening because of material progress, but it is happening. I do not think any of that undermines the possibility of material progress. I believe I addressed this in the article.
You are correct in stating that we should not assume that human material progress leads only to good things. That is an empirical question that needs to be addressed.
I disagree that my measurement is inadequate. Take a look at all the metrics that I listed in the article. Do you really believe that those things do not matter? I doubt it. My guess is that almost all people would choose more progress by any of those metrics, and yet very few people had that choice in the past. I think what you are actually saying is that my definition and metrics do not capture everything that is good.
You are correct. I would never argue that human material progress is the only thing that matters. Only that it is important enough to investigate systematically.
2) I have no problem with the concept of progress being applied to humanity, as long as one does not go to the extreme of saying "unless everyone is experiencing progress, then no one is."
Yes, we can run into zero-sum effects, particularly before the Industrial Revolution. The Rome-Carthage example that you gave is an excellent on. And it is what most of humanity lived in before progress started. That is exactly why material progress is so important.
I think it is very possible to speak of progress within nations or sub-national groups. That is exactly what most development metrics and economic does. It is also what you do in your list of problems in the first paragraph.
3) My next post, by coincidence, addresses exactly this point. Let's hold off discussing until tomorrow.
I do not think that "The longer term flourishing of humanity" improves my definition at all. Much of your list is already included in my list, and the rest is all very subjective. Worst, many of those additional items will conflict with each other, whereas my metrics are very closely correlated.
I am not sure that I understand your final point about Type 1 and Type 2 progress. Are you referring to intensive and extension growth?
Anyway, thanks for the comment. This is exactly the kind of discussion that Progress Studies needs.
Thanks for the great reply.
Just to clarify… Type 1 progress is progress in technology, science, sports performance, evolutionary functions and knowledge. Technology, for example, has made steady progress on countless dimensions for 10k years, but this never led to improved human flourishing, even by your measure (it did lead to more humans).
Type 2 is flourishing (my def) or material flourishing (your def), and is something which has only shown up in the last ten generations of humanity. This leads to the question of what changed to enable flourishing in last 250 years? I think you and I would broadly agree on the answers.
I don't quite understand your comment about technological progress for 10K years. MM's essay on 1/10/24 on agriculture may clarify this, too, but over that time only biomass fed muscle power was available, along with wood used for smaller scale ceramics and metallurgy (black smithing). Real Tech Progress seems to have required using high density forms of fuel, such as coal (and later oil) to jump over the Malthusian rachet on food production, etc. That, coupled (perhaps) with the printing press leading to greater literacy and demand for "brain power" over muscle power. This helped larger scale use of metals (particularly iron/steel/brass/bronze), and in turn increased the focus on higher and higher quality machining of metals.
Not the total answer by any means, but somewhere I did read that the performance of the early Otto cycle engines was substantially improved just by increasing the machining tolerances used to fabricate the component parts (bearings, seals, and cylinders and rings, mostly, I suspect).
Yes. My point was that there was incremental improvements in thousands of fields for thousands of years, but not fast enough to outrun Malthusian forces and other headwinds. Thus technology "progressed" for millennia but human welfare did not improve. It is possible to get technological and knowledge progress without getting progress in human material living standards. Did that clarify at all?
I go into a little more detail here:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/understanding-how-humans-create-progress
I agree with that, but I would rephrase it a little.
Humans have always had technological innovation. That is a hallmark of humanity.
Humans have also experienced change since at least the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago, but it was too slow for anyone to experience an increased standard of living within their lifetime.
Therefore, it was change, not progress. Progress is much more recent.
Second part of answer….
"I disagree that my measurement is inadequate. Take a look at all the metrics that I listed in the article. Do you really believe that those things do not matter? I doubt it. My guess is that almost all people would choose more progress by any of those metrics, and yet very few people had that choice in the past. I think what you are actually saying is that my definition and metrics do not capture everything that is good."
Yes, I am saying that GDP, and the various things you mentioned which can be measured, and the various things I mentioned (which can probably be measured too), all matter. And when I combine all the things people want or could want or will want some day, I don’t think “improved material standing-of-living” as a definition captures it. It doesn’t capture it now, and it will be increasingly inadequate going forward.
"You are correct. I would never argue that human material progress is the only thing that matters. Only that it is important enough to investigate systematically."
Yes, I would even say that it is one of the most important things. But it is a subset of progress, not Progress.
One final point, I think that some values will conflict, as will some goals, and some strategies and tactics. This makes measurement really hard, especially when people change their goals and values and standards over time. But I don’t think we gain by oversimplifying this field to gain measurement clarity.
I can see where you are coming from, but I do not think that we will ever be able all understand “the things people want or could want or will want some day” or be able to investigate it thoroughly.
I do not think that Progress Studies should be trying to invent a new religion, ideology or philosophy. I think what you are trying to accomplish is far beyond what can be achieved. Just narrowing down to material progress is complicated enough for me.
Simplifying is essential for understanding. I think as long as we understand that material progress is not everything good, then I do not see that as a problem. It is Progress studies, not Everything studies. If material progress is only 33% of what is good, it is still worth studying.
Anyway, thanks for the incisive comments. I know that many people who are interested in progress agree more with you than with me.
Feel free to comment on tomorrow’s article.
I agree that material progress is worth studying and that you are helping to lead the charge in doing so. I believe there is also value in researching the broader topic, and that doing so shouldn’t be (and doesn’t have to be) a religious or philosophical pursuit.
Are you going to do this on Substack?
I still think it is premature because I don’t write consistently. On top of that, I am really not a good writer.
I am retired. I previously ran new product development and innovation for a very large financial company, but now basically spend my time surfing (waves mainly, but the internet too I guess). When I worked, my forte was leading teams of people. I was the idea guy, the person who could envision a different world and make it come about by directing the rest of the company to make it a reality. The Marketing department supplied my writers!
In the meantime, I hope you don’t mind me providing input to your thoughts. I am in awe of your knowledge, and hope my thoughts and responses add some value. Honestly, the stuff you put together is light years ahead of the rest of the formal progress movement. Hopefully I am far enough along on the journey of studying the topic that I can recognize genius in others.
> number of years schooling,
This is an input not an output. Anecdotally, high and possibly even middle school students in America from a century ago were better educated than college students today.
Fair enough.
In terms of promoting either economic growth or more informed citizens, it is clearly an input, not an output.
Frankly it seems many public schools in America are becoming little more than a combination of day care and political indoctrination. I'm not sure if the Third World has the same problem, but wouldn't be surprised.
Good point. I suspect there are quite a few measures of quantitative inputs of a material nature that become stand-ins for desired outputs. Or at least they may be required precursors towards the preferred final end. Thus achieving them is "progress" of a sort as well?
Correct. See my other response…
Thanks Michael for writing this. I agree that having a definition that is useful as a concept (and also useful in that a large portion of the community adopts it!) would be very helpful.
I think your definition gets at a lot of the important elements of progress, and I like that it has an empirical flavour to it. As you say, it's good to be able to actually apply a definition and see where it does and doesn't fit in history. I also like that it's fairly simple.
I do have a few scattered thoughts about your definition:
1) As your discussion here in the comments with @Swami highlighted, I think that focusing on material progress is practical, yet also feels like it is missing something along the lines of the non-material that progress can bring. From my understanding of your post, you want to focus on material progress since it's already rich/complicated enough that layering on more would be too big of a challenge. I just wonder if divorcing the definition of progress from anything non-material will make it less appealing as a field of study?
2) The discussion of "human flourishing" as a definition versus yours makes me wonder if we need both. Your definition is much more specific, clear, and seems easier to form measures of progress using it. However, I must admit that I'm sympathetic to progress as human flourishing for the sole reason that this is what we want progress to enable, right? If we are successful in raising the material standard of living of everyone on Earth to the point where everyone can live comfortably, then I would hope this leads to more human flourishing. With your definition, progress enables human flourishing, but human flourishing isn't progress itself. I suspect people might not want to give up on the human flourishing part, even if it makes the definition more complex. (Basically, I'm thinking of appending to your definition, "...to enable human flourishing.")
3) You bring up a good point about having a definition that we can readily communicate to people. What I've been wondering over the last few days is if all of these definitional issues come down to what abstraction level we're talking about. In other words: How would you define progress to a 6 year old? To a high school student? To a college student? To a normal adult who doesn't know economics or doesn't have a sense of history? To someone with a lot of experience looking at trends of human well-being over time? To another person who works within this field of progress studies? I think it would be natural if the definitions get more complex and technical as we move up the ladder of abstraction.
4) I'm super sympathetic to your desire to turn progress studies into a field of social science. I wonder how you think progress studies as a field differs from progress as a movement or ideology (because that seems to also be happening at the moment)? Then, it wouldn't surprise me if the definitions would start to differ since the starting motivation would be different.
Your post left me with a lot to think about, so thanks again. I may have to write something myself on the issue after I've thought about it some more...
As for point 4, I do not want progress to be an ideology. I think so many movements and ideologies have hijacked the concept for PR purposes that it has lost its meaning. Ideologies obsess over an idea and how to implement the idea.
I believe that a focus on RESULTS is the key to sorting through all the BS. It is fine if you think that you have a solution, but you need to test it out in the real world.
A focus on results also explains why studying history is so key to Progress Studies. We should look at the results of what has been tried in the past, and see common themes that run through both the successes and the failures. Then do more of what works, and look at the results, and iterate. Most importantly, do less of what has repeatedly failed, which I believe is what most ideologies want to do.
Ideologies start with an idea and supporters do not care about results. They just keep repeating the same failure over and over. Any failure is just a sign that one needs to try harder.
Progress Studies should look at the results, and then constructing ideas that help us to understand what works.
Yes, I agree with you that "divorcing the definition of progress from anything non-material will make it less appealing as a field of study" I do not think, however, that it is a good reason to change the definition of progress to something impossible to falsify or measure.
Perhaps those people would be more interested in studying religion, ideology and philosophy.
I would be much more amendable to research on "human flourishing" within Progress Studies if their proponents gave me a widely accessible metric that measures the concept.
The closest that I know of is "self-reported happiness", but whenever I bring that up with them, they are not satisfied. If so, then I think the field of psychology has made discoveries that should be built upon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_psychology
https://positivepsychology.com/psychology-of-happiness/
I fear that anything short of such a metric will devolve into just repeating the same points made by religion, ideology and philosophy and embedding all those ancient struggles into the definition of progress.
The result will be no "progress" on studying progress.
I definitely agree with you that having a good metric that captures "human flourishing" would be a big step in making this a viable foundation for progress studies. Or at the very least, one way to get at the concept of progress. Because you're right: it's difficult to just vaguely gesture towards "something" that's supposed to represent human flourishing, since nobody will agree!
Wow, awesome comments!
I love that you are taking this seriously and asking great questions. You bring up so many good points, I am also going to have to think about it.
My initial impressions are that you are correct in everything that you say.
As I think more about the issue, I am starting to think that we need two separate concepts: human material progress and human flourishing. They are likely related, but we should not assume so before thoroughly investigating.
I really want to keep the study of material progress as a cornerstone of Progress Studies. It would be more of an Applied Social Science, like medical research. This point was made by Cowen and Collison in their original article.
I have no problem with another sub-discipline within Progress Studies studying Human Flourishing in a similar methodical way. The key is that we clearly define our terms. Otherwise we cannot communicate with each other.
I will write more later when I have had time to think.
Thanks again!
I have no problem with the criteria you selected for defining progress; nor the base definition itself.
But I do wonder if the "improvement in the material standard-of-living ..." hides some of the other aspects of "progress" as addressed via Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Some of the more abstract benefits of satisfactory psychological well being depend on material based enhancements but go beyond them, as well. And I suspect they are part of what many people think of when they consider "progress". But they are also clearly subjective and variable across a population. And therefore maybe difficult to quantify? [but psych is NOT my area of expertise].
I agree that measurability is a core and important criteria, but perhaps sometimes inputs have to be used as surrogates for presumed outputs? The more I think about what you are pursuing here with Progress Studies the more I recognize the subtleties that are or will make it more difficult to achieve status as a social science. The goal of improving social "whatever" is laudatory, but probably gets more complicated as you move up the Maslow Hierarchy?
And, yes, it is perfectly fine to use inputs as surrogates for outputs when that is the only data available. One example might be years education. When doing so, however, one must remember that it is a surrogate and that the correlation between the input and the output might not be as straightforward as anticipated.
Yes, I agree.
That is why I do not advocate for a vague definition like “human flourishing” or including the top levels of the Maslow Hierarchy. I do not claim that they do not matter. Only that the material progress matters a lot and can be studied in a relatively objective way.
I doubt Progress Studies will ever become as “hard” as physics, chemistry, biology or even economics. I do think that we can become a social science like political science (my original field). But we are going to have to work hard to get there.
I also think that we can study the effect of material progress on, for example, happiness. I have another post on that:
https://frompovertytoprogress.substack.com/p/does-material-progress-lead-to-happiness
I am also interested in some of the other psychological effects of material progress, and I will post on this issue. It is important not to assume that all effects of material progress are good. I think some might well be bad, but like the invention of the automobile leading to car crashes, which led to seatbelts and airbags, we might be able to mitigate the negative effects.
I made a minor comment on the Happiness posting.
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