Mission: Progress

Michael Magoon's Substack and techne

On Wednesdays, I’m featuring Substacks I’ve come across that are instructive and intriguing. Today’s feature is

From Poverty to Progress by Michael Magoon

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Michael Magoon

’s mission is to (re-)enable the pursuit of material progress in contemporary society, based on the historical accomplishments of the last few centuries. I particularly like his definition of progress: “the sustained improvement in the material standard of living of a large group of people over a long period of time,” which takes into account the all-important matter of scale. Helping a few people, or making a short-term improvement quickly undone — i.e. blips — are not what we’re after. Progress needs to be geographically widespread (population-wise) and sustained — and sustainable — over a long period of time.

These goals correspond roughly to my Anthropocene classification. Anthropocene 1 (A1) = megatrends over time. A2 is spatial impacts on land and sea. Michael focuses on material progress, which mirrors my A3 (human economy) category, but he is also concerned with political systems and policy, and he is anti-ideology (my A4). We have a lot in common.

Combining his Substack with his YouTube channel, his book review website where he shared over 280 reviews (!), there’s a lot on offer. He has also published two books, and more are on the way. As a summary of his work, have a look at his Manifesto. I applaud especially the effort to create a movement, including a network of similar and related Substacks.

Taken as a whole, Michael’s work constitutes what I call a techne, a framework of knowledge and practice, which is one of the key components of lifelong learning that I advocate. A techne is a unique, personal creation that one works on over the course of years of study and the practice of craft.¹

Overview

In both his Manifesto and the introductory video on his YouTube channel, Michael ably summarizes his project. You can go into much greater detail on any given point via the many additional written essays and video presentations.

Michael’s Manifesto summarizes 13 key propositions of his mission for progress. The video touches on all of them. Here’s my take.

Points 1-4. We need to recognize, empirically, from recent centuries, recent decades, and especially the last 30 years, how much material progress the human species has made. There’s no guarantee of it continuing into the future (although Michael sees no great risk of it stopping soon). But these aren’t mere values or wish-fulfillment or projections. The human species, empirically speaking, historically speaking, has made spectacular progress.

Points 5-6. It hasn’t always been so. In all times past, until very recently, human beings as individuals, as groups, and as a species, have had it really hard, with few resources to work with. And yet, our ancestors were incredibly innovative problem-solvers quite miraculously got us to where we are today. We should be grateful and aim to learn from them.

Points 7-9. Michael’s framework for understanding progress enumerates five keys or preconditions, as well as a set of mechanisms that establish a positive feedback loop, so that progress can keep happening. More on this below.

Point 10. I’m intrigued by the particular historical narrative Michael puts together for the rise of progress starting in the northern Italian city-states, which realized four of the five keys or preconditions. Innovations move to Flanders, then the Dutch Republic, then into the UK including the Industrial Revolution there, and on to the US, which has dominated since the 20th century.

Point 11. There is, however, a major problem in that the built-in cognitive negativity bias of human brains cause us not to recognize progress. We don’t really want to see it, or pay attention, because we’re biased to pay attention to threats instead. The study of progress can actually be a kind of therapy for overcoming human cognitive bias!

Point 12. Progress does not come from government, politics, or ideology. It comes from everyday people problem-solving and making their solutions available for others to decide to try (buy).

Point 13. Michael is working with others in a network to establish a Progress Movement, including a whole new field: Progress Studies. He wants to promote awareness, study history, and sweep away government policies that are downright obstacles to progress. Important note → He’s stands neither left nor right politically, and opposes both established parties and agendas, in favor of forging a new way. He advocates for continued economic growth, a prosperous working class, a clear path for youth, a focus on actual results (not intentions or beliefs), and political reform.

Again, go read for yourself, and explore all the details via other content on Michael’s Substack.

A Manifesto for the Progress-based Perspective

Keys & Mechanisms

Forming the heart of a Progress techne, what are the five key preconditions for historical progress? What are the mechanisms of self-sustaining positive feedback loops?

The keys are sustainable food; trade-based cities; decentralized political (and other kinds of) power; at least one high-value added export; and the use of fossil fuels. Historically, it’s clear that harnessing the energy of high-density fossil fuels was essential to the Industrial Revolution, which enabled Britain and then the US, Japan, and other industrialized nations to launch perpetual economic, technological, health, and social progress.

Progress mechanisms are technological innovation, people learning new skills, people cooperating within organizations, people competing between organizations, adaptation and improvement over time (copying and modifying), and (as noted above) the consumption of vast amounts of energy.

My take is that all of these keys and mechanisms are recognizable in terms of basic economic history, global trade, and the growth of high-energy industrialization, agricultural transition, and — to put it in a word — capitalism.

And as historical fact, Michael is right that this is the developmental (progress) trajectory we know. As I have argued myself, we cannot disregard these preconditions and mechanisms of progress and the rise of human welfare. We cannot go back.

I really appreciate the historical detail (it’s not just economic theory), centered on trading and commercial city-states — which is fascinating and a fairly unique perspective as far as I know — and a persistent focus on continuing this trajectory through smart private and public policymaking today, all while eschewing left/right ideologies because of the clear and massive harm they have done in the past.²

Amen!

A Few Questions

Nevertheless, from my similar perspective in working out how to be good humans in the Anthropocene — equaling the era of human Progress but adding in a recognition of all kinds of collateral, planetary fallout — I have a few questions.

Probably the first stumbling block most people will fall over is Michael’s advocacy (?) of using fossil fuels, that they are one of the necessary preconditions. Historically this is of course true, and it seems to remain a necessity for developing nations to “catch up.” But is pushing for more fossil fuels a present-day policy priority? Energy is unquestionably a (the) priority, if we don’t want, as a species, to slide back to the dark ages, with a massive population die-off. But how to solve for energy demands is in my view an open and rapidly-evolving issue, and both renewable and nuclear are, and should be, in the mix, with a range of alternatives and mitigations even amongst fossil fuels choices. Basically, our energy regime needs to become circular in some way, with the ultimate source of all energy on earth, the sun, not excluded from an otherwise closed system.

I completely understand the need to focus on “results” and to be pragmatic — vs. bending to politics driven by ideology, wish-fulfillment, intention, unrealistic appeals to voters and “the way it should be,” all flying in the face of hard reality. On the other hand, if the point is progress, that means the way we “want” it to be in the future is different from today, by definition. Being oriented purely to results is also consequentialist in philosophy, probably utilitarian. Utilitarianism (any consequentialism) is notoriously a stance that will disregard the means by which we get to desired ends, however maximized they are. Ends don’t, in my book, justify means. One needs to make progress via acceptable methods (to be debated, of course).

Ends-orientation, especially the purer it is, would after all be one of the chief characteristics of an ideology. Someone has an ideal, a utopian vision — like perpetual material progress? — and is willing to go to any lengths to get there. However pragmatic Michael intends his approach, there is a philosophical defense to be made.

Which brings up the question of risk. The harder one pushes for an ideal, or a perpetual movement, the more one is willing to risk to get there. The adoption and persuasive power of ideologies draws on this dynamic, promising utopian ends to those will are willing to risk and sacrifice the most, with the explicit goal of destroying present political, economic, social-cultural, environmental, or “natural” orders, anything that hampers or stands in the way.³ Risk affects all movements based on a call for rapid human change and “creative destruction.” Even if means are properly calibrated, human actors can become notoriously fickle and uncontrollable, especially if they gain wealth (rewards) or power (political effectiveness). What are the “existential risks” of technology, industry, AI, reforming long-standing political institutions, shifting cultural norms, expanding global trade, and so on? History shows that the risks are not negligible.

Here are some examples. Political inventions like constitutions (including bills of rights, checks and balances, etc.), nationalism (preceded by mercantilism, imperialism and colonialism, slavery), social and economic “rules of the game,” property rights, commoditization of land and labor, and various sorts of incentives, tariffs, taxation, financial schemes, and the like all act as mechanisms for how the system works, and for the sake of redistribution. They set up structural constraints and protections, as well as facilitations, towards any mission of progress.

In short, social matters of (in)justice and (in)equality will weigh heavily on a mission to provide for, increase, or sustain materials progress. Progress for whom? At what cost? With what non-human environmental and planetary impact (as well as human) — all of which can severely affect opportunities for sustainable progress in the long run.⁴

A final question has to do with the deep, basic focus here on material progress. Whatever non-material aspects of politics, education, psychology, social and cultural values, ideologies and practices, affect material progress, it seems they are here treated as causal factors or interferences, not ends in themselves. But aren’t non-material goals per se also a necessary part of the desired human picture? Don’t we need to make progress on non-material dimensions also? — Is that even possible? — It’s not to say that a basic level of material welfare isn’t necessary as a prerequisite to pursuing other goods — cultural, artistic, eudaimonistic (flourishing, happiness), ethical, philosophical, spiritual. But it is to say that, ultimately, we do pursue them, and we should, even if they slow or dampen material progress to some extent.

What material progress is good for, in the end, may be those other things, the non-material things, including also the well-being of non-human living creatures with whom we share our world, and the peace and prosperity of the planet itself.

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Subscription to From Poverty to Progress by Michael Magoon | Substack recommended.

Italian cityscape (Venice) from Michael Magoon’s Substack, post on commercial societies

1. See my Pondercraft project. My own techne for lifelong learning for the Anthropocene includes a working classification of Anthropocene issues (A1, A2, A3, A4) and also the components of a learning program, for which building one’s techne is central.

2. An important issue to clarify is the relation of a pragmatic and non-Left version of progress, including a new Progress Studies field, to political (left, Democratic) progressivism, and to the historical Progressive Era, starting from the 1890s in the US, running through the New Deal and Great Society, all the way to the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s.

Brad DeLong

in his Slouching Towards Utopia traces sustained economic progress throughout precisely this time period.

3. What is a “natural” order is worth thinking long and hard about. The most persuasive ideologues are hard at work to make whatever their assumed convictions are re: political, economic, historical, social, religious, ecological, and anthropological beliefs “natural.”

4. No doubt the details of Michael’s videos and posts go into all these details, and I haven’t parsed it all yet!