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The goal of my From Poverty to Progress (FP2P) Substack column is to:
Promote an awareness and unde
rstanding of material progress.
Explain the origins and causes of progress.
Apply that knowledge to develop policies and practices that promote future progress.
Build a coalition to implement those policies in the real world.
Praise for my writing
My writing has been recommended by many outstanding thinkers, including:
Steven Pinker: “Magoon has made a valuable contribution in adding to our understanding of the facts and causes of the most important development in human history.”
Tyler Cowen: “Michael Magoon’s new book… will change your thinking about progress and its relevance to your life.”
Joel Mokyr (Nobel Prize in Economics 2025): “In an Age of Despondency, this book’s deep faith in progress is like a breath of fresh and hopeful air. May Magoon be right.”
See more praise for my From Poverty to Progress book series.
What do you write about on Substack?
Below are links to good introductory articles and complete series on the topics that I have written about:
A Manifesto for the Progress-based Perspective (best place to start)
Progress Studies (how we can study material progress in a systematic way)
Technology and Innovation
My theory of history (including before Progress evolved and after)
How the United States became an engine of progress for the last 150 years
Policies to:
Promote long-term economic growth in wealthy nations.
Enable developing nations to experience material progress.
Promote Upward Mobility for the poor and working class
Other key sub-themes in my writing:
The dangers of radical ideologies to future progress
Energy and its importance to human material progress
Agriculture and food production and its importance to human material progress
Impact of geography on human history
Society Types, a crucial concept for understanding human history.
Commercial societies, where human material progress was invented long before the Industrial Revolution.