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01 / 05
What Are the Causes of Human Progress?

Blog Post | Progress Studies

What Are the Causes of Human Progress?

The escape from stagnation has always required a culture of optimism and progress.

Summary: Human progress requires a culture of openness to change and innovation, which historically has been rare and resisted by established elites. Periods of remarkable achievement, like that seen in Enlightenment Europe, occurred when societies embraced new ideas and allowed for intellectual and economic freedom. The key to sustained progress lies in maintaining a culture of optimism and a politico-economic system that encourages innovation rather than suppressing it.


To make progress, we must do something differently from what we did yesterday, and we must do it faster, better, or with less effort. To accomplish that, we innovate, and we imitate. That takes a certain openness to surprises, and that openness is rare. It is difficult to come up with something that never existed. It’s also dangerous, since most innovations fail.

If you live close to subsistence level, you don’t have a margin for error. So, if someone wants to hunt in a new way or experiment with a new crop, it is not necessarily popular. There is a reason why most historical societies that came up with a way of sustaining themselves tried to stick to that recipe and considered innovators troublemakers.

That means that innovation depended on stumbling on a new way of doing things. Someone came up with a new and better tool or method by accident or by imitating nature or another tribe. But when populations were small, few people accidentally came across a great new way of doing things, and there were few people to imitate. In other words, there is a limit to what can be done in small, isolated societies.

It took greater population density and links to other groups to get the process of innovation and specialization going. Cultures at the crossroads between different civilizations and traditions were exposed to other ways of life as merchants, migrants, and military moved around. By combining different ideas, they set the process of innovation in motion. Ideas started having sex with each other, in the British writer Matt Ridley’s memorable phrase.

Such openness gave rise to extraordinary periods of achievement in cultures like ancient Greece and Rome, Abbasid Baghdad, and Song China. They were, as the American economist Jack Goldstone calls them, “efflorescences”—sharp and unexpected upturns that did not become self-sustaining and accelerating. They did not last.

The American economic historian Joel Mokyr talks about that as Cardwell’s Law—named after the technology historian D. S. L. Cardwell, who observed that most societies remained creative only for a short period. Often, they were ruined by external enemies, since poorer states and roving bandits are attracted by the former’s wealth.

But there are also enemies within. Every act of major technological innovation is “an act of rebellion against conventional wisdom and vested interests,” explains Mokyr. And conventional wisdom and vested interest have a way of fighting back.

Economic, intellectual, and political elites in every society have built their power on specific methods of production and a certain set of mythologies and ideas. The vested interests have an incentive to stop or at least control innovations that risk upsetting the status quo. They try to reimpose orthodoxies and reduce the potential for surprises, and sooner or later they win, the efflorescence is stamped out, and society reverts to the long stagnation.

An escape from stagnation requires a culture of optimism and progress to justify and encourage innovation, and it takes a particular politico-economic system to give people the freedom to engage in the continuous creation of novelty.

Enlightenment and Classical Liberalism

Luckily, this culture emerged forcefully in western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, in the form of the Enlightenment, which replaced superstition and authority with the ideals of reason, science, and humanism, as the Canadian psychologist Steven Pinker summarizes it, and classical liberalism, which removed political barriers to thought, debate, innovation, and trade.

It was the combined forces of the Enlightenment and classical liberalism that reduced intellectual and economic elites’ power to stamp out progress. Cardwell’s Law started to break down, and the road opened for individualists, innovators, and industrialists to change our world forever.

Why did this happen in Europe, and why then? There are two traditionally competing narratives, one associated with the right and one with the left, and they are equally wrong. According to the first, it was because Europeans were better than others (perhaps because of natural superiority, the legacy of the ancients, or Christianity). According to the second, it was because Europeans were worse than others (perhaps because of slavery, colonialism, and imperialism).

The problem with the first explanation is that experimentation in science, technology, and capitalism had been present in previous pagan, Muslim, Confucian, and other cultures. In fact, Europe imported and improved upon many non-European advances. The problem with the second explanation is that all previous civilizations also engaged in slavery, colonialism, and imperialism when they had a chance. Yet, they remained poor. So, what made Europe more successful must have been something else.

As noted, elites everywhere reacted to surprising innovations by trying to enforce political authority and intellectual orthodoxy. What made Europe different was that the elites failed. Unlike the Chinese or Ottoman empires, Europe was blessed with political and jurisdictional fragmentation, which has been emphasized by scholars like the British-Australian economic historian Eric Jones and the English historian Stephen Davies.

European rulers had the same ambitions to conquer and control, but on a peninsula of peninsulas, they were halted at mountain ranges, bodies of waters, riverine marshes, and forested landscape. Therefore, Europe was split into a mindboggling array of polities, independent cities, autonomous universities, and different religious denominations.

Hundreds of different sovereigns could not coordinate repression and impose one orthodoxy on all. That always left room for thinkers, entrepreneurs, and banned books to migrate to the jurisdiction most hospitable to their particular heresy. The Protestant Reformation was a further blow to ambitions for universal authority. How can you revert to a trusted authority when you don’t know which authority to trust? Nullius in verba (take nobody’s word for it), was not just the motto of the Royal Society, founded in London in 1660, but the spirit of the whole Enlightenment project.

European princes discovered that rivals who welcomed more migrant scientists, entrepreneurs, and technologies also acquired more wealth and thereby more war-making capacity. Disruptive innovations still threatened the elite power base in the long term, but a lack of innovation might threaten their lives instantly—via a superior invading army. In a fragmented Europe, sovereigns faced the opposite incentive of rulers of vast empires, who feared domestic discord more than they feared foreign conquest.

Fear of change therefore began to give way to a fear of stagnation. “And thus, it is,” wrote the German philosopher Immanuel Kant in 1784, that the Enlightenment gradually arises “from the selfish purposes of aggrandizement on the part of its rulers, if they understand what is for their own advantage.”

Scientific and Industrial Advances

The associated classical liberal transformation, pioneered by the Dutch Republic, and then taken further by Great Britain and the United States, simultaneously widened the freedom for new experiments and enterprises through greater equality under the law, more secure property rights, and freer domestic economy and expanding markets.

That created a virtuous circle, since the scientific endeavor, businesses forced to compete, and an open society are by their natures works in progress, subject to constant challenge and improvement. They allow more people to experiment with new ideas and methods and combine them in unexpected ways.

As the American economic historian Deirdre McCloskey has shown, these processes went hand in hand with a profound reevaluation of urban and bourgeois life. Whereas commerce and innovation used to be seen at best as necessary evils to fund a hierarchical and aristocratic society, they now started to be seen as desirable, even honorable.

This relative freedom for inquisitiveness and irreverence unleashed first a scientific revolution and then an industrial one. The cumulative nature of knowledge instilled a powerful sense of optimism. When telescopes, microscopes, and the English scientist Isaac Newton unlocked nature’s mysteries, the whole world soon learned about it and started thinking about how natural regularities could be exploited for practical purposes.

Through migrations, correspondence, the printing press, coffee shops, and learned societies, scientists and entrepreneurs systematized knowledge in mechanics, metallurgy, geology, chemistry, soil science, and materials science. That made it possible to consciously manipulate, debug, and adapt methods, materials, and machines to changing needs. New knowledge pointed to new experiments that could be used to interrogate nature further, and the results of those interrogations pointed to new technologies that could be used to grow more food, prevent or cure disease, shape materials, and exploit energy sources.

The modern corporation and financial markets emerged as vehicles for systematically transforming capital and knowledge into goods and services that improved people’s lives. No longer did mankind have to wait for someone, somewhere to stumble on a breakthrough at widely dispersed intervals. An economic and intellectual system devoted to the systematic pursuit of discoveries and innovations had been created. From Manchester and Menlo Park to Silicon Valley, pioneers methodically pushed the technological frontiers further into the unknown, and free competition and international trade made such wonders widely accessible at everyday low prices.

Therefore, for the first time in history, progress did not come to a sudden halt. It continued and accelerated. More people than ever looked at the world’s problems and were free to come up with their own suggested solutions. Finally, mankind reached escape velocity, and progress was no longer a bump on a flat line of human development but a hockey stick, pointing sharply upward.

“It may be that the Enlightenment has ‘tried’ to happen countless times,” writes the British physicist David Deutsch in The Beginning of Infinity. And therefore, it puts our own lucky escape into stark perspective: All previous efforts were cut short, “always snuffed out, usually without a trace. Except this once.”

It should make us deeply grateful that we are among the few who happen to be born in the only era of self-sustained, global progress. But it should also make us focused and combative. History teaches us that progress is not automatic. It only happened because people fought hard for it and for the system of liberty that made it possible.

If we want to remain the one great exception to history’s rule of oppression and stagnation, every new generation must find it within itself the desire to make the world safe for progress.

World Bank | Quality of Government

Côte D’Ivoire’s Land Reforms Are Unlocking Jobs and Growth

“Secure land tenure transforms dormant assets into active capital—unlocking access to credit, encouraging investment, and spurring entrepreneurship. These are the building blocks of job creation and economic growth.

When landowners have secure property rights, they invest more in their land. Existing data shows that with secure property rights, agricultural output increases by 40% on average. Efficient land rental markets also significantly boost productivity, with up to 60% productivity gains and 25% welfare improvements for tenants…

Building on a long-term partnership with the World Bank, the Government of Côte d’Ivoire has dramatically accelerated delivery of formal land records to customary landholders in rural areas by implementing legal, regulatory, and institutional reforms and digitizing the customary rural land registration process, which is led by the Rural Land Agency (Agence Foncière Rurale – AFOR).

This has enabled a five-fold increase in the number of land certificates delivered in just five years compared to the previous 20 years.”

From World Bank.

Buenos Aires Times | Macroeconomic Environment

Inflation in Buenos Aires City Slows to Monthly 1.6 Percent

“Consumer prices in Buenos Aires City rose 1.6 percent in May, lower than the expectations of most analysts and a slowdown from the previous month.

The news will be welcomed by President Javier Milei’s national government, which is awaiting the publishing of the INDEC national statistics bureau’s national figure later this week.

According to data from the Buenos Aires City Statistics Office, prices in the capital were up 1.6 percent, down from the 2.3 percent recorded in April. Most private consultancy firms expected a rate of around two percent.

Inflation so far this year in the capital totals 12.9 percent – a massive drop on the 48.3 percent recorded over the same period in 2024.”

From Buenos Aires Times.

Blog Post | U.S. Agriculture

Cornpreneurs Save Us From Davos Elites

US corn yields are increasing 3.56 times faster than population.

Summary: For nearly a century, corn production in the United States has far outpaced population growth, thanks to relentless agricultural innovation. While global elites warn of food scarcity and promote insect-based diets, American farmers continue to feed the nation—and the world—more efficiently than ever, defying the narrative of resource collapse.


Corn has a rich history stretching back thousands of years to Mesoamerica, where it was domesticated from a wild grass called teosinte. Indigenous peoples in the Americas developed corn through selective breeding, making it a cornerstone of their diets, cultures, and civilizations. After Christopher Columbus introduced corn to Europe in 1493, it spread rapidly across the globe, becoming a dietary staple and key ingredient in countless cuisines.

Today, corn is the most widely produced grain in the world, with global production exceeding 1.2 billion metric tons. The United States leads the world in corn production, consumption, and exports—accounting for 31 percent of global output with 377.63 million metric tons, according to the USDA.

Over 95 percent of animal feed for US livestock—such as cattle, hogs, and poultry—comes from corn, which makes up roughly 40 percent of all corn used domestically. Despite this abundance, the Davos crowd would have us believe that our survival hinges on swapping steaks and burgers for worms and insects. Under the banner of “sustainability,” they propose shuttering our Texas Roadhouses, Dickey’s Barbecue Pits, and Chick-fil-As to make way for bug burgers. But are we really running out of beef, chicken, and pork?

Hardly. Corn is a foundational feed for producing those delicious meats. In the 1930s, US corn yields averaged 26 bushels per acre. Today, that number is 179.3 bushels per acre—with top-performing farms reaching an astonishing 624 bushels. That’s a 589.6 percent increase in yield over 88 years. One acre today produces as much corn as nearly 6.89 acres did in 1936, freeing up 5.89 acres for other uses—from conservation to recreation. Yields continue to rise at about 1.75 bushels per year, doubling every 31.6 years thanks to a 2.21 percent annual growth rate.

Meanwhile, the US population grew 165.6 percent between 1936 and 2024—from 128 million to 340 million. Yet every one percent increase in population has corresponded with a 3.56 percent increase in corn abundance. If each American consumed one bushel of corn in 1936, it would’ve required 4.9 million acres of land to grow the crop. Today, even with 212 million more people, it only takes about 1.9 million acres. We’ve reduced land needs by 61 percent. We’re growing smarter much faster than we’re growing people.

Corn was selling for around 68 cents a bushel in the 1930s. Unskilled workers were earning around 28 cents an hour. That would put the time price at 2.42 hours. The USDA currently estimates the season-average corn price at $4.20 per bushel for the 2025-2026 crop year. Unskilled workers are earning $17.17 an hour putting the time price at 0.24 hours or around 15 minutes. The time price has fallen from 145 minutes to 15 minutes, or almost 90 percent. For the time it took an unskilled worker to earn the money to buy one bushel of corn in 1930, they get 9.7 bushels today.

Screenshot

MIT’s Andrew McAfee highlighted this trend in More from Less, predicting continued innovation in agriculture. He’s even backing his confidence with a $100,000 bet: that by 2029, the US will produce more crops than in 2019 while using less land, fertilizer, and irrigation. If you think he’s wrong—and believe the World Economic Forum’s bug-eating future is inevitable—there’s your chance at easy money.

So yes, you could try a worm with your next meal—but there’s no reason to think we’re running out of corn or the land to raise your next steak, wing, or chop.

Find more of Gale’s work at his Substack, Gale Winds.

Blog Post | Human Development

The Real Threats to Golden Ages Come From Within

History’s high points have been built on openness, Johan Norberg's new book explains.

Summary: Throughout history, golden ages have emerged when societies embraced openness, curiosity, and innovation. In his book Peak Human, Johan Norberg explores how civilizations from Song China to the Dutch Republic rose through trade, intellectual freedom, and cultural exchange—only to decline when fear and control replaced dynamism. He warns that our current prosperity hinges not on external threats but on whether we choose to uphold or abandon the openness that made it possible.


“Every act of major technological innovation … is an act of rebellion not just against conventional wisdom but against existing practices and vested interests,” says economic historian Joel Mokyr. He could have said the same about artistic, business, scientific, intellectual, and other forms of innovation.

Swedish scholar Johan Norberg’s timely new book—Peak Human: What We Can Learn from the Rise and Fall of Golden Ages—surveys historical episodes in which such acts of rebellion produced outstanding civilizations. He highlights what he calls “golden ages” or historical peaks of humanity ranging from ancient Athens and China under the Song dynasty (960-1279 AD) to the Dutch Republic of the 16th and 17th centuries and the current Anglosphere.

What qualifies as a golden age? According to Norberg, societies that are open, especially to trade, people, and intellectual exchange produce these remarkable periods. They are characterized by optimism, economic growth, and achievements in numerous fields that distinguish them from other contemporary societies.

The civilizations that created golden ages imitated and innovated. Ancient Rome appropriated and adapted Greek architecture and philosophy, but it was also relatively inclusive of immigrants and outsiders: being Roman was a political identity, not an ethnic one. The Abbasid Caliphate that began more than a thousand years ago was the most prosperous place in the world. It located its capital, Baghdad, at the “center of the universe” and from there promoted intellectual tolerance, knowledge, and free trade to produce a flourishing of science, knowledge, and the arts that subsequent civilizations built upon.

China under the Song dynasty was especially impressive. “No classic civilization came as close to unleashing an industrial revolution and creating the modern world as Song China,” writes Norberg.

But that episode, like others in the past, did not last: “All these golden ages experienced a death-to-Socrates moment,’” Norberg observes, “when they soured on their previous commitment to open intellectual exchange and abandoned curiosity for control.”

The status quo is always threatening: the “Elites who have benefited enough from the innovation that elevated them want to kick away the ladder behind them,” while “groups threatened by change try to fossilize culture into an orthodoxy.” Renaissance Italy, for example, came to an end when Protestants and Catholics of the Counter-Reformation clashed and allied themselves with their respective states, thus facilitating repression.

Today we are living in a golden age that has its origins in 17th-century England, which in turn drew from the golden age of the Dutch Republic. It was in 18th-century England that the Industrial Revolution began, producing an explosion of wealth and an escape from mass poverty in much of Western Europe and its offshoots like the United States.

And it was the United States that, since the last century, has served as the backbone of an international system based on openness and the principles that produced the Anglosphere’s success. As such, most of the world is participating in the current golden age, one of unprecedented global improvements in income and well-being.

Donald Trump says he wants to usher in a golden age and appeals to a supposedly better past in the United States. To achieve his goal, he says the United States does not need other countries and that the protectionism he is imposing on the world is necessary.

Trump has not learned the lessons of Norberg’s book. One of the most important is that the factors that determine the continuation of a golden age are not external, such as a pandemic or a supposed clash of civilizations. Rather, says Norberg, the critical factor is how each civilization deals with its own internal clashes, and the decision to remain or not at a historical peak.

A Spanish-language version of this article was published by El Comercio in Peru on 5/6/2025.