Progress Studies Reading List

[Luis Mota Freitas]

The reading list below is based on a reading list originally used for an internal GPI reading group. These reading groups are used as a way of doing an early-stage exploration of new areas that seem promising from an academic global priorities research perspective. Each topic is often used as the theme for one or two weekly discussions, and in most cases those attending the discussion will have read or skimmed the suggested materials beforehand.

As I thought that it could be a valuable resource for those interested in academic global priorities research, I’m sharing it here, with permission from the authors. All the credit for the list below goes to them.

Disclaimer: The views presented in the readings suggested below do not necessarily represent views held by me, GPI, or any GPI staff member.

Overview

This list aims to explore technological, scientific, and economic progress from an EA perspective. The first two topics make the broad case for promoting progress. Topics 3 and 4 deal with some concerns about progress; namely, whether it promotes wellbeing, and whether it increases existential risks. The last two topics consider some other important questions: the causes of the industrial revolution, and the connection between progress and morality.

1. Foundations

• Cowen, 2018, Stubborn Attachments

• Applied Divinity Studies, 2021, The Moral Foundations of Progress

  • Section 1

• Collison and Cowen 2019, We Need a New Science of Progress

• Piper, 2021, How Does Progress Happen?

• A Conversation with Mark Zuckerberg, Patrick Collison, and Tyler Cowen

2. Stagnation

• Cowen, 2011, The Great Stagnation

  • Chapter 1

  • Chapter 6

  • Alternative: Econtalk interview on the book

• Bloom et al., 2020, Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?

• Bhaskar, 2022, Human Frontiers

  • Alternative: Hear This Idea podcast

• Hall, 2021, Where is My Flying Car?

• Jones, 2009, The Burden of Knowledge and the “Death of the Renaissance Man”

• Gordon, 2016, The Rise and Fall of American Growth

3. Progress, Happiness, and Mental Health

• Pinker, 2018, Enlightenment Now

  • Ch. 18

• Plant, 2022, Will Faster Economic Growth Make Us Happier?

• Hidaka, 2012, Depression as a Disease of Modernity

• Stevenson and Wolfers, 2008, Economic Growth and Subjective Well-Being

• Easterlin & O’Connor, 2020, The Easterlin Paradox

4. Progress and X-Risk

PS: some readings in this topic overlap with the growth theory reading list

• Aschenbrenner, 2020, Securing Posterity

• Applied Divinity Studies, 2021, The Moral Foundations of Progress

  • Section 2

• Greaves, 2021, Longtermism and Economic Growth

• Bostrom, 2003, Astronomical Waste

• Aschenbrenner, 2020, Existential Risk and Growth

• Trammell, 2021, Existential Risk and Exogenous Growth

• Altman, 2013, Growth and Government

5. Causes of the Industrial Revolution

• Allen, 2011, Why the Industrial Revolution Was British

• Mokyr, 2005, The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth

• Vries, 2010, The California School and Beyond

• Mokyr, 2016, A Culture of Growth

• Howes, 2017, The Spread of Improvement: Why Innovation Accelerated

• in Britain 1547-1851

• Pomeranz, 2021, The Great Divergence

• Allen, 2009, The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective

• Crafts, 2011, Explaining the First Industrial Revolution: Two Views

6. Progress and Morality

• Friedman, 2005, The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth

  • Ch. 4

• Enke et al., 2022, Morals as Luxury Goods and Political Polarization

  • Sections 1-4

[annaleptikon]

Thank you for putting this together!