If You're Curious About These Questions...
You should listen to this audiobook
- How does the 'bell-shaped curve' of national wealth challenge the common belief that economic prosperity is the primary enemy of environmental conservation?
- In what ways did the shift from relying on plunder to engaging in global commerce drastically reduce the lethality and frequency of wars between nations?
- What specific historical and technological catalysts caused extreme global poverty to plummet from over 44 percent in 1981 to under 10 percent in 2015?
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Key Takeaways from Progress
- Thanks to advances in urban sanitation and evidence-based medicine, global life expectancy has more than doubled since the early twentieth century.
- The expansion of global trade, mechanization, and the dismantling of oppressive regimes have driven extreme global poverty to an all-time low.
- Environmental protection is heavily dependent on economic prosperity, as nations consistently prioritize conservation and cleaner technologies once their basic survival needs are met.
- We are currently living in one of the most peaceful eras in history, largely because global commerce makes value exchange far more profitable than warfare and plunder.
- Rising global affluence and mass literacy campaigns have nearly eradicated child labor while fostering significantly more tolerant, democratic, and egalitarian societies.
Learning Tools
Reinforce what you learned from Progress
Mind Map
Progress
The Optimistic Perspective
Pessimism ignores long-term trends of human improvement
Humanity is healthier, richer, and more tolerant than ever
Be skeptical of pessimists lamenting the 'good old days'
Defeating Hunger
Famine was historically ubiquitous and deadly before modern agriculture
Property rights gave farmers incentives to produce surplus crops for profit
Global trade allowed regions to specialize and improve food efficiency
Technology like combine harvesters caused massive productivity leaps
Global undernourishment dropped from 50% in 1945 to around 10% today
Health & Longevity
Sanitation improvements and waste disposal stopped disease breeding grounds
Global access to safe drinking water rose to 91% by 2015
Evidence-based medicine and mass vaccinations steadily pushed diseases back
Global life expectancy rose from 31 to 71 since the early 1900s
Wealth & Poverty
Industrialization and mechanization skyrocketed worker productivity and earnings
Free trade and globalization opened new markets for developing nations
Global extreme poverty fell from 44.3% in 1981 to 9.6% in 2015
Violence & Peace
Information age media creates a false illusion of rising violence
Centralized governments and legal systems drastically reduced homicide rates
Global commerce makes trade much more profitable than armed plunder
Average war fatalities dropped from 86,000 to 3,000 per conflict since the 1950s
Environment
Wealth creates a bell-shaped curve for environmental damage
Once basic needs are met, societies prioritize environmental conservation
Technological advances drastically reduce toxic emissions in wealthy nations
Prosperity is the solution to environmental damage, not the cause
Education
Global literacy skyrocketed from 12% to 86% over 200 years
Mass literacy campaigns and prosperity fund better global schooling
The gender gap in education has nearly closed to 1:1 globally
Equality & Freedom
Slavery, once ubiquitous before 1800, is now banned by every nation
Universal suffrage spread to 58% of the world's population by 2000
Financial security makes societies more tolerant and inclusive of minorities
The Future
Child labor plummeted globally due to rising parental wealth
The 'skill premium' incentivizes investing in children's education over labor
Globalized knowledge empowers billions to solve remaining human problems
Quiz — Test Your Understanding
Question 1 of 8
What does the author identify as a primary driver for the rapid decrease in global hunger starting in the nineteenth century?
Progress — Full Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: Recommendation
Chapter 2: Hunger is gradually fading away thanks to better food production.
Chapter 3: Better sanitation and modern medicine have greatly boosted how long we live.
Chapter 4: People today are richer than before and extreme poverty is at a historic low.
Chapter 5: We are living through one of the most peaceful times in human history.
Chapter 6: Our natural world is also gaining from rising prosperity across the globe.
Chapter 7: Schooling and learning have surged worldwide over the past two centuries.
Chapter 8: Democracy and tolerance worldwide have expanded freedom and reduced inequality.
Chapter 9: The next generations can carry forward and extend the progress we’ve achieved.
Progress Summary & Overview
Progress (2016) is a broadside against the naysayers and pessimists who argue that things are constantly getting worse. Citing improvements in freedom, equality, health and wealth as evidence, Johan Norberg argues that we’ve made huge strides toward a better world. In fact, our species has never been better off. But that’s not the only gladdening news. If current trends are anything to go by, we’re also in for a rosy future.
Who Should Listen to Progress?
- Pessimists who think the glass is always half empty
- Politics nerds who love a good argument
- Futurologists who want a picture of tomorrow’s world
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