>scrambled the old rules of scholarship!): economic statistics greatly
>understate the real extent of material progress over the last century.
This whole debate of "progress" is a classic example of what Marx aptly refers to as 'commodity fetishism.' For commodity fetishists / economic reductionists it is the matter of a simple equation: more gizmos=more progress=better human condition.
While it is true that material resources are the necessary condition for the betterment of human life, the relationship is not as simple as as the fetishists imply.
First, new technologies may produce benefits, but they may also have unforeseen negative side effects. What may appear as a technological benefit not, may be the curese of tomorrow. A textbook example comes fro the colonization of American continent some 13 thousand years ago. The people who arrived here from Asia developed technological advancements that tranformed them into efficient hunters. But that initial effciency turned out to be a major disadavantage in the long run. Being efficient hunters they caused the extinction of all large mamals suitable for domestication. That was a major factor that thwarted the development of agriculture, military technology and the resistance to communicable diseases, factors responsible for the conquest of Native Americans by European invaders.
Second, new technological advances might be simply an antidote of the perils of earlier technological innovation. For example, the major benefit of the invention of catalytic converters is simply undoing the negative impact (pollution) caused by an earlier invention - internal combustion engine.
Third, technologcial inventions, rather than being universally spread (as the fetishists imply) are usually adopted by one social group to promote their own interests or gain advantage over other social groups. A typical example is nuclear technology - it might have benefitted the US ruling class and the elites of a few other countries, but its benefits for the rest of the popuation as at best dubious.
Fourth, technological development is a selective process - the options being implemeneted are usually the ones most beneficial for the powers that be, but not necessariyly most beneficial for humankind. For example, the development of lead-based gasoline additives benefitted mainly corporate interests who could patent it, while poisoning the public. An alternative (ethyl alcohol) was equally effcient and less polluting, but it could not be pattented, so it was not implemented. Is that progress?
Fifth, technological development often has externalities that are not counted in the cost/benefit calculus. For example, the devlopment of the automobile increased social mobility, but that had very detrimenatl effect on the stability of communities, which in turn deteriorated the quality of human relations, increased crime rates, environmental pollution, etc. Yet, these negative side effects are are not attributed to specific technological inventions (automobile) but seen as negative sides of "modernity" in general (as if they were inevitabel price we pay for "progress.")
Sixth, technology develops social needs and expectation. For example, we "need" mobile communication devices because they are available, but without them, our communication can be organized as effectively by alternative means.
In short, the relationship between technology and progress (= betterment of human condition) is not as simple as commodity fetishists and industry apologists wants us to believe. To develop a more accurate view we need to account for technologies that simply undo negative saide effects of earlies technologies, technologies that serve mainly as instruments of domination, and technologies that in a long run deteriorate human relations. We moreover need to take into account changing social needs.
With that in mind, I would rank some major 19th and 20th century technological inventions as follows:
Mostly detrimental (regress):
nuclear energy internal combustion & automobile rocket propulsion gunsmith technology chemical and biological warfare stock market machine politics & client-based politics human intelligence & intelligence measurement techniques
Mixed detrimental and beneficial:
radio communication image storing and transmission (cinema, TV) taylorism multi-divisional corporation and mass production airplane computers & digital devices agricultural technology (pesticides, machinery, new species) plastics new building technologies (steel frame, glass, new materials) patents and intellectual property rights university
Mostly beneficial (progress):
telegraph and telephone typewriter electricity and electric propulsion railroad antibiotics birth control public health care system economic planning & keynesianism universal suffrage and proportional representation civil & human rights politics
wojtek