The Idea of Progress

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Unit III: Naturalizing Progress

One feature distinguishing Enlightenment theories of progress from the observations about patterns of improvement that characterized ancient sources is the idea of a goal. For the theorists of the Enlightenment, progress did not simply mean that life was getting better in certain respects. It meant that the human condition was moving toward a specific destination that could be discerned by reason.

The idea that progress has a determinable goal has distinctly religious roots. In particular, it draws on the Christian idea of a future kingdom of God. Aware of these origins, many Enlightenment theorists of progress invoked divine providence even as they distanced themselves from traditional theology. Hegel's elaborate conception of Geist is the dramatic version of this complicated rhetoric of secularization.

Are religious ideas and language necessary to identify the historical trajectory of the human race? Can progress be attributed to nature alone, without reference either to an intentional creator or immanent reason in history? The texts for this unit answer these questions in the affirmative. Taking economic arguments about unintentional improvement as their starting point, they ground theories of progress in the physical world rather than the domain of providence or capital-R reason. In this way, they aim to establish a natural science of progress.

Precedents for this naturalistic approach can be found in Turgot, among others. In his view, progress emerged unintentionally, from the free interactions and unintentional discoveries of individuals. In this sense, Turgot's theory of progress is naturalistic.

Yet the conception of nature that characterizes the thought of the 19th century is different to the one familiar to Turgot and his contemporaries. At least since Newton, the orbits of the planets had been seen as the paradigm of law-governed physical interaction. As such, the natural science of progress was seen as a kind of astronomy, in which the future position of society or technology could be precisely forecast from its current location. In the “Tenth Epoch” of the Outline, Condorcet made this analogy explicit with the following rhetorical question:

If man can predict, almost with certainty, those appearances of which he understands the laws; if, even when the laws are unknown to him, experience or the past enables him to foresee, with considerable probability, future appearances; why should we suppose it a chimerical undertaking to delineate, with some degree of truth, the picture of the future destiny of mankind from the results of its history?

In the 19th century, by contrast, progress was increasingly seen as aprocess comparable to the development of animate bodies. This change partly reflects the popularity of “organic” theories of society developed by German Romantics in the late 18th century and rapidly popularized around the continent. It was also inspired by the new approaches to the understanding of reproduction and demographics pioneered by Thomas Malthus and elevated to canonical status by Charles Darwin.

In some ways, the organic turn in theories of progress represents a revival of Aristotelian ideas about growth. Yet there is a key difference, which reflects the continuing influence of the ballistic physics of the Enlightenment. For Aristotle, growth was oriented toward a final cause. The process of development thus has a natural peak, which would inevitably be followed by decline. The critiques of Bacon and Descartes, however, permanently discredited the invocation of final causes in nature. Due partly to their influence, the modern science of growth could not be oriented toward any predetermined goal. Instead, 19th century naturalists understood progress as open-ended. In this respect, they are closer to Rousseau's suggestion that human nature is infinitely variable than to Condorcet's pseudo-mathematical calculations.

That does not mean the 19th century theorists of progress refused to say anything about the character of a future society. As H.G. Well's predictions indicate, they did so at great length and with considerable imagination. To preserve the indeterminacy of future development, they could not commit themselves to the kind of specific vision of the state or civil society found in Hegel. Rather than a particular social form, they saw the society of the future as a framework with unforeseeable developments.

Progress and Political Economy

In addition to broad speculations about the character of human society, these ideas have roots in classical political economy, particularly in Adam Smith's works. While Turgot, among others, had earlier suggested that economic improvements depended on the division of labor, Smith was the first to make this insight the key of a naturalistic social science. According to Smith, breaking down the labor process into specific activities does not only enhance productivity, but also encourages innovation, as focused attention to specific tasks reveals new and more efficient ways to perform them.

For Smith, therefore, the procession of economic stages described in prior theories of progress does not correspond to the increasingly broad intelligence or growing technical mastery of specific persons. He did not believe that the individual member of a commercial society was more developed than his forefathers. Rather, progress involves the distinction and breakdown of labor tasks across the whole of society, increasing the sophistication of the whole while relying on minimal capacity from each part. The pastoralist is required to be more knowledgeable and capable than the factory worker: he has to know how to execute an enormous number of important tasks; while the factory worker may only be able to play a small role in the productive process. Yet the factory worker is possible only in a highly developed society characterized by a rigorous division of labor and rapid technological improvement, while the pastoralist belongs to a slow-moving and impoverished age.

Despite the narrowing of capabilities involved in specialization, Smith believed that economic progress benefitted all members of society. Borrowing from John Locke, he contended that the poorest worker in a commercial and industrial society was materially better off than a king among savages. No idea better encapsulates the residual theodicy embedded in Smith's account of progress: the abundance of modern society justifies a high degree of inequality.

Smith's optimistic prediction assumes that the increases in production enabled by the division of labor will match population growth—in other words, that the supply of goods will meet demand, at least if trade is free. Thomas Malthus challenged this assumption, at least when it came to the most important good of all: food. According to Malthus, population increases geometrically while agricultural production increases arithmetically. As such, shortages of basic necessities will actually increase, even under the most rigorous division of labor. Malthus thus concludes that progress is a chimera:

This natural inequality of the two powers of population and of production in the earth, and that great law of our nature which must constantly keep their effects equal, form the great difficulty that to me appears insurmountable in the way to the perfectibility of society. All other arguments are of slight and subordinate consideration in comparison of this. I see no way by which man can escape from the weight of this law which pervades all animated nature. … Consequently, if the premises are just, the argument is conclusive against the perfectibility of the mass of mankind.[35]

The problem, as Malthus saw it, was particularly acute for the lower classes. Because the abundance of modern society encouraged them to believe that there was an unlimited supply of goods, Malthus predicted that they would reproduce above the rate of replacement—increasing the demand for food while doing little to enlarge the supply. As a result, the price of food would rise, placing it beyond the means of much of the growing population, whose members' competition for work would ultimately lower wages. Rather than enriching the common people, then, progress would impoverish them.

The Malthusian problematic established the framework for 19th century thought on progress in the English-speaking world. Thinkers such as John Stuart Mill wondered how technological improvements unleashed by the division of labor could be prevented from eroding progress While Malthus did not believe that any effectual check could be applied, Mill placed his confidence in man's growing capacity for mastering nature—in this case, birth control. If the population could be prevented from increasing as rapidly as the supply of food and other essential goods, workers would be in a position to bid for a larger share of society's production.

In the Principles of Political Economy, Mill argued that the combination of industrial development and birth control would usher in a new “stationary state” of human history. Low population growth would give workers the leverage to demand higher wages and better working conditions. In this way, the promise that the division of labor would raise the standard of living could be realized for the first time.

Yet the term “stationary” is misleading. According to Mill, the coming age of abundance would be far from a period of stagnation. On the contrary, properly compensated workers would for the first time be able to devote themselves to the cultivation of their individual capabilities, rather than struggling for survival. In this respect, the stationary state would be an age of enormous progress, as the benefits of culture were spread from a lucky few to the rest of the population.

The Character of Progressive Government

Mill argues that these conditions demand a distinctive kind of state for their support. Rather than attempting to secure positive goals or specific forms of order, government should leave individuals to organize their own lives to the greatest possible extent. In On Liberty, Mill makes explicit the connection between his philosophies of history, economics, and politics. Rejecting appeals to natural rights, Mill grounds limited government in "utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of a man as a progressive being.” (page or webpage?) Despite his utilitarianism, Mill retains commitments to liberal institutions of representative government and the rule of law. Mill's liberal progressivism is not utopianism—although he expects that individuals will develop themselves in new and unforeseeable ways, he does not believe that they will become politically or morally perfect. Since egoism and conflict will remain features of human nature, government remains essential.

Marx attributes both more and less importance to the state than Mill. In the first place, Marx regards the control of the state by the working class—the dictatorship of the proletariat—as a necessary step toward socialism. For Marx, the state is merely the instrument of the current ruling class. Just as the rise of the bourgeoisie required the commercial classes to seize political dominance from the aristocracy, the rise of the proletariat requires the workers to take control of the means of production. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx describes the policy of the workers' state as one of “despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production …” This goes far beyond anything that a liberal like Mill could accept.

Marx's argument for the inevitability of revolution and dictatorship is famously adapted from Hegel. Departing from the Hegelian notion that truth is derived from contradiction, Marx argues that history itself is a kind of dialectic. In it, the successive stages of society emerge from the conflict between elements of the previous society. For Hegel, the dialectic functioned principally on the level of ideas. Marx represented the naturalizing trend of the 19th century by arguing that the contending forces were material and economic. Specifically, Marx maintained that the increasing productive and technological mastery unleashed by the division of labor and its consequent overproduction threatened the existence of the bourgeoisie, which led to commercial crises and thus the immiseration of the labor force. The dialectical response was not to restrict the population through birth control. Rather, it was for the proletariat to seize control of the means of production, turning them to their own purposes.

Although Marx's understanding of the contradictions of capitalism were inspired by Malthus, it is important to recognize the ways in which Marx was much more optimistic. First, he believed that there were no inherent limits on man's productive capabilities. While Malthus saw limits to the rate of growth, Marx believed that the supply of food and other goods could be extended infinitely to match the increasing population. In simple terms, Marx retained an extraordinary faith in the ability of technology to improve man's material condition. This faith is something new; even Condorcet saw progress primarily as improvement of the human mind.

Second, Marx believed that human behavior would necessarily offer a favorable response to this abundance. In a society in which everyone enjoyed a sufficiency of basic goods, what motive could there be for unrest or crime? Marx does not assume that men are angels but he claims that our actions are determined primarily by our circumstances. A radically different society would generate a radically different behavior.

That goes for rulers as well. Marx assumes that since everyone in a socialist society would contribute as much as he could and receive everything he would need, there would be no temptation for proletarian dictators to overstay their welcome by transforming themselves into a new ruling class. Thus, Marx can promise what Mill does not—the eventual elimination or “withering away” of the state. It is this aspect of Marx's thought, more than any other, that has encouraged accusations that he secularizes the old hope for the kingdom of heaven, replaces God with the proletariat and substitutes paradise with socialism.

The Science of Transformation

In the 19th century, the belief in the malleability of human nature was more than theological speculation. It appeared to be supported by Darwin's research. According to the greatest scientific innovator of age, living things have no fixed nature, but develop in ways that allow them to survive in challenging environments and attract mates. Naturalism, in this perspective, is not a doctrine of essences, but rather of historical change.

The idea of “evolution” was not unique to Darwin. His innovation was the identification of mechanisms of biological change. Natural selection involves characteristics that allow organisms to capture a larger share of the food supply, or other resources. Sexual selection involves characteristics that allow organisms to attract mates or otherwise reproduce. According to Darwin, the organisms that are best able to feed themselves and produce offspring are the most likely to survive, while those that are weaker or less fecund are most likely to perish. In this way, the “struggle for survival” produces over time distinct species with characteristics especially well-suited for their environments.

Darwin did not initially use the term “survival of the fittest.” Nor did he suggest that the species that emerged from the struggle for survival were “better” than those that died out. These ideas were promoted by Herbert Spencer, the father of what is sometimes described as “social Darwinism.” According to Spencer “evolution” is not simply change over time in response to environmental changes. It is a form of progress toward increasingly complex and adaptable forms.

Spencer bases this argument on a close analogy between society and what he saw as the hierarchy of natural organisms. Just as a highest product of biological evolution, man, is more complicated and adaptable than lower species, a more developed society will be one characterized by a more elaborate division of labor and social roles than a society at a lower stage of development.

This synthesis of biological evolution with social progress had two consequences that are more provocative today than they were at the time. The first, famously, is a strong commitment to laissez-faire. In Spencer's view, most restrictions on competition or attempts to help losers were counterproductive. Although well-intentioned, they only prolonged the misery of those unable to adapt to changing conditions. This rather harsh understanding of progress goes back to Malthus, who also rejected social welfare provision for the poor as a cruel temptation to excessive reproduction.

A second consequence of Spencer's arguments was an implicit racialism. For Spencer, non-industrial societies were not simply less economically developed. Their members were actually less biologically developed—a fact that he attempted to demonstrate using the then-fashionable measure of cranial capacity. Despite his sympathy for scientific racism, Spencer rejected colonialism as a violation of the liberty of the colonized and an unjustified departure from the principle of laissez-faire. In this respect, he not only compares favorably with both Mill and Marx, who combined libertarian visions of the future of industrial societies with an approval for the use of coercion to bring barbarians up to a higher level of development, but also represents an exception to Said's generalizations about the role of progress in justifying colonial empires.

H.G. Wells accepts several aspects of this popularized Darwinism. Yet he disagreed with Spencer about the role of competition. In Well's view, like in Marx's, unrestrained competition had once been necessary to unleash new productive forces but as individuals and firms devoted their energies to destructive price wars that threatened both profits and wages, it had become counterproductive. Class war could be avoided, Wells believed, if production were subjected to rational planning. Managerial socialism was thus the next stage of progress.

In a series of works, including the excerpts included here, Wells tries to imagine what life in such a society would really be like. Of great interest are his ideas about the transformation of the family. In Well's view, formations such as the nuclear family are competitive adaptations to specific social circumstances. In the society of the future, they will become unnecessary—and are perhaps so already. Wells thus forecasts a society in which the economy is subject to a high degree of managerial control, but personal behavior (e.g., sex and marriage) is subject to few social or legal restraints—liberalism for private life, socialism for public affairs.

This approach coordinating private liberty with public purposes may seem paradoxical. Yet it would become characteristic of the progressive movement in the United States, which was developing at about the same time that Wells published his speculations. One obstacle to achieving progress so conceived was the subsisting 18th century institutions, which were based on an older understanding of natural rights. Could they be reformed for progressive purposes?

Note on Editions

The texts for this unit are available online in various public domain editions. In addition to Google Books, students should check libertyfund.org and marxists.org. (Quotes in this section are from the Liberty Fund online editions [please provide links as you refer to the various texts]).

Suggested Questions for Discussion

• In what respects does Smith expect the division of labor to promote progress? Can such progress be planned? Or is it better left to fortune?
• Why does Malthus believe that the theorists of progress are mistaken? What tensions or contradictions in human tendencies have they neglected?
• How does Mill propose to overcome the tendency to over-reproduction? Is this proposal consistent with his defense of individual liberty?
• What is the relation between intellectual and social progress in Mill's theory?
• What is the dictatorship of the proletariat for Marx? Why is it necessary?
• What aspects of Hegel's philosophy of history do you detect in Marx? What aspects of Hegel's philosophy has Marx modified?
• In Marx's view, can communism be achieved without violence? Why or why not? Be sure to consider possible differences between The Communist Manifesto and the Critique of the Gotha Program.
• Darwin does not use the terms “evolution” or “progress” in The Origin of Species. What relation might these ideas have to “natural selection”—Darwin's preferred description of the process through which species are altered?
• What are the normative implications, if any, of the phrase “survival of the fittest”?
• Does Spencer make appropriate use of ideas from Darwin, in your view? Is it helpful or misleading to speak of “social Darwinism”?
• How does Spencer's understanding of progress influence his arguments about limited government?

Suggested Writing Assignments

• Compare Marx and Mill on the possibility of achieving progress by means of electoral politics. Why does Mill believe this to be possible? Why does Marx deny its possibility?
• Why does Wells disagree with Spencer that a progressive government must be limited? What aspects of life does he regard as eligible for regulation or management? What sort of human beings does Wells expect to undertake this task—and where would they come from?
• Why do Malthus and Marx believe that technological improvement leads to social immiseration? What do they think Smith got wrong?
• How, in Mill's view, does limited government promote progress? What role, if any, do individual rights play in his argument?

Further Reading

There has been a recent renaissance of scholarship on the moral and philosophical foundations of classical liberalism. A good place to start is Emma Rothschild, Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002). Recently reprinted, A.O. Hirschman's The Passions and the Interests (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013) remains a helpful resource. Students remain likely to find Robert Heilbronner's The Worldly Philosophers (New York: Touchstone, 1999) an accessible introduction to political economy. The literature on Malthus gets an update in Robert J. Mayhew, Malthus (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2014). Gertrude Himmelfarb emphasizes the theme of progress in various essays on Mill, beginning with Victorian Minds: A Study of Intellectuals in Crisis and Ideologies in Transition (New York: Ivan R. Dee, 1995). Alan Ryan offers less moralistic interpretations of the same material in Part 3 of The Making of Modern Liberalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012). The classic study of Marx's conception of history is G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012). In Karl Marx: A Nineteenth Century Life (New York: Norton, 2013), Jonathan Sperber attempts to restore Marx to his Victorian milieu. Mark Francis credits Herbert Spencer with much more enduring contributions than generally believed in Herbert Spencer and the Invention of Modern Life (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007). Mike Hawkins provides a broader account of the reception of Darwinism into social thought in Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Unit III: Illustrations

Syllabus | Introduction | Secondary Literature | Unit I | Unit II | Unit III | Unit IV

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[35] http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/malthus-an-essay-on-the-principle-of-population-1798-1st-ed