El progreso es el movimiento hacia un estado refinado, mejorado o deseado. [1] [2] [3] En el contexto del progresismo , se refiere a la proposición de que los avances en la tecnología , la ciencia y la organización social han resultado, y por extensión continuarán resultando, en una condición humana mejorada ; [4] lo último puede ocurrir como resultado de la acción humana directa, como en la empresa social o mediante el activismo , o como parte natural de la evolución sociocultural .
El concepto de progreso se introdujo en las teorías sociales de principios del siglo XIX , especialmente la evolución social como la describen Auguste Comte y Herbert Spencer . Estaba presente en la Ilustración 's filosofías de la historia . Como meta, el progreso social ha sido defendido por diferentes ámbitos de ideologías políticas con diferentes teorías sobre cómo lograrlo.
Midiendo el progreso
Los indicadores específicos para medir el progreso pueden variar desde datos económicos, innovaciones técnicas, cambios en el sistema político o legal y cuestiones relacionadas con las oportunidades de vida individuales, como la esperanza de vida y el riesgo de enfermedad y discapacidad.
El crecimiento del PIB se ha convertido en una orientación clave para la política y, a menudo, se toma como una figura clave para evaluar el desempeño de un político. Sin embargo, el PIB tiene una serie de defectos que lo convierten en una mala medida del progreso, especialmente para los países desarrollados. Por ejemplo, no se tiene en cuenta el daño ambiental ni la sostenibilidad de la actividad económica. Wikiprogress se ha creado para compartir información sobre la evaluación del progreso social. Tiene como objetivo facilitar el intercambio de ideas, iniciativas y conocimientos. HumanProgress.org es otro recurso en línea que busca compilar datos sobre diferentes medidas de progreso social.
Our World in Data es una publicación científica en línea , con sede en la Universidad de Oxford , que estudia cómo avanzar contra grandes problemas globales como la pobreza, las enfermedades, el hambre, el cambio climático, la guerra, los riesgos existenciales y la desigualdad. [5] La misión de Our World in Data es presentar "investigaciones y datos para avanzar frente a los problemas más grandes del mundo". [6]
El Índice de Progreso Social es una herramienta desarrollada por la Organización Internacional Imperative Social Progress, que mide hasta qué punto los países cubren las necesidades sociales y ambientales de su ciudadanía. Hay cincuenta y dos indicadores en tres áreas o dimensiones: Necesidades Humanas Básicas y Fundamentos de Bienestar y Oportunidades que muestran el desempeño relativo de las naciones.
Los índices que se pueden utilizar para medir el progreso incluyen:
- Amplias medidas de progreso económico
- Año de vida ajustado por discapacidad
- Producto nacional verde
- Índice de desarrollo relacionado con el género
- Indicador de progreso genuino
- Felicidad nacional bruta
- Bienestar Nacional Bruto
- Índice planeta feliz
- Índice de Desarrollo Humano
- Índice de prosperidad de Legatum
- Índice de progreso social
- Índice de Vida Mejor de la OCDE
- Satisfacción subjetiva con la vida
- Índice de dónde nacer
- Wikiprogress
- Informe mundial sobre la felicidad
- Encuesta mundial de valores
Progreso cientifico
El progreso científico es la idea de que la comunidad científica aprende más con el tiempo, lo que hace que se acumule un cuerpo de conocimiento científico . [7] Los químicos del siglo XIX sabían menos de química que los químicos del siglo XX y, a su vez, sabían menos que los químicos del siglo XXI. De cara al futuro, los químicos de hoy esperan razonablemente que los químicos de los siglos futuros sepan más de lo que saben. [7]
Este proceso difiere de los campos no científicos , como los lenguajes humanos o la historia: se puede decir que las personas que hablaron un idioma ahora extinto, o que vivieron un período histórico, conocieron cosas diferentes de los eruditos que lo estudiaron más tarde. , pero no se puede decir que sepan menos sobre sus vidas que los eruditos modernos. [7] Algunos conocimientos válidos se pierden con el paso del tiempo, y se adquieren otros conocimientos, con el resultado de que los campos no científicos no avanzan científicamente hacia la comprensión de sus áreas temáticas. [7]
Desde el siglo XVIII hasta finales del siglo XX, la historia de la ciencia, especialmente de las ciencias físicas y biológicas, a menudo se presentaba como una acumulación progresiva de conocimiento, en la que las verdaderas teorías reemplazaban a las falsas creencias. [8] Algunas interpretaciones históricas más recientes, como las de Thomas Kuhn , tienden a retratar la historia de la ciencia en términos de paradigmas o sistemas conceptuales en competencia en una matriz más amplia de tendencias intelectuales, culturales, económicas y políticas. Estas interpretaciones, sin embargo, han encontrado oposición porque también retratan la historia de la ciencia como un sistema incoherente de paradigmas inconmensurables, que no conducen a ningún progreso científico, sino solo a la ilusión de progreso. [9]
Progreso social
Los aspectos del progreso social, como los describe Condorcet , han incluido la desaparición de la esclavitud , el aumento de la alfabetización , la disminución de las desigualdades entre los sexos, las reformas de las cárceles duras y la disminución de la pobreza . [10] El progreso social de una sociedad puede medirse en función de factores como su capacidad para abordar las necesidades humanas fundamentales , ayudar a los ciudadanos a mejorar su calidad de vida y brindar oportunidades para que los ciudadanos tengan éxito. [11]
El progreso social a menudo mejora con aumentos del PIB, aunque también son relevantes otros factores. Un desequilibrio entre el progreso económico y social obstaculiza un mayor progreso económico y puede provocar inestabilidad política. [11] Cuando existe un desequilibrio entre el crecimiento económico y el progreso social, a menudo surgen inestabilidad política y malestar. El progreso social rezagado también frena el crecimiento económico en estos y otros países que no abordan las necesidades humanas, construyen capital social y crean oportunidades para sus ciudadanos. [11]
Condición de la mujer
Cómo el progreso mejoró la condición de la mujer en la sociedad tradicional fue un tema importante de los historiadores que comenzaron en la Ilustración y continúan hasta hoy. [12] Los teóricos británicos William Robertson (1721-1793) y Edmund Burke (1729-1797), junto con muchos de sus contemporáneos, permanecieron comprometidos con las concepciones de la virtud de base cristiana y republicana , mientras trabajaban dentro de un nuevo paradigma ilustrado. La agenda política relacionaba la belleza, el gusto y la moralidad con los imperativos y necesidades de sociedades modernas de alto nivel de sofisticación y diferenciación. Dos temas en el trabajo de Robertson y Burke —la naturaleza de las mujeres en sociedades 'salvajes' y 'civilizadas' y 'la belleza en apuros' - revelan cómo las convicciones arraigadas sobre el carácter de las mujeres, especialmente con respecto a su capacidad y derecho aparecieron en el dominio público, se modificaron y ajustaron a la idea de progreso y se convirtieron en centrales para la civilización europea moderna. [13]
Los expertos en clásicos han examinado el estado de la mujer en el mundo antiguo y han llegado a la conclusión de que en el Imperio Romano, con su organización social superior, la paz interna y el imperio de la ley, las mujeres disfrutaban de una posición algo mejor que en la antigua Grecia, donde las mujeres eran claramente inferior. [14] El estatus inferior de las mujeres en la China tradicional ha planteado la cuestión de si la idea de progreso requiere un rechazo total del tradicionalismo, una creencia sostenida por muchos reformadores chinos a principios del siglo XX. [15]
Los historiadores Leo Marx y Bruce Mazlish preguntan: "¿Deberíamos de hecho abandonar la idea del progreso como una visión del pasado?", Responden que no hay duda "de que la condición de la mujer ha mejorado notablemente" en culturas que han adoptado la idea de la Ilustración. de progreso. [dieciséis]
Modernización
La modernización fue promovida por los liberales clásicos en los siglos XIX y XX, quienes pidieron la rápida modernización de la economía y la sociedad para eliminar los obstáculos tradicionales al libre mercado y la libre circulación de personas. [17] Durante la Ilustración en Europa, los comentaristas sociales y los filósofos comenzaron a darse cuenta de que las personas mismas podían cambiar la sociedad y cambiar su forma de vida. En lugar de ser hechos completamente por dioses, había cada vez más espacio para la idea de que las personas mismas creaban su propia sociedad, y no solo eso, como argumentaba Giambattista Vico , porque las personas creaban su propia sociedad, también podían comprenderla plenamente. Esto dio lugar a nuevas ciencias, o protociencias , que pretendían proporcionar nuevos conocimientos científicos sobre cómo era la sociedad y cómo se puede cambiar para mejor. [18]
In turn, this gave rise to progressive opinion, in contrast with conservational opinion. The social conservationists were skeptical about panaceas for social ills. According to conservatives, attempts to radically remake society normally make things worse. Edmund Burke was the leading exponent of this, although later-day liberals like Hayek have espoused similar views. They argue that society changes organically and naturally, and that grand plans for the remaking of society, like the French Revolution, National Socialism and Communism hurt society by removing the traditional constraints on the exercise of power.
The scientific advances of the 16th and 17th centuries provided a basis for Francis Bacon's book the New Atlantis. In the 17th century, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle described progress with respect to arts and the sciences, saying that each age has the advantage of not having to rediscover what was accomplished in preceding ages. The epistemology of John Locke provided further support and was popularized by the Encyclopedists Diderot, Holbach, and Condorcet. Locke had a powerful influence on the American Founding Fathers.[19] The first complete statement of progress is that of Turgot, in his "A Philosophical Review of the Successive Advances of the Human Mind" (1750). For Turgot, progress covers not only the arts and sciences but, on their base, the whole of culture—manner, mores, institutions, legal codes, economy, and society. Condorcet predicted the disappearance of slavery, the rise of literacy, the lessening of inequalities between the sexes, reforms of harsh prisons and the decline of poverty.[10]
John Stuart Mill's (1806–1873) ethical and political thought demonstrated faith in the power of ideas and of intellectual education for improving human nature or behavior. For those who do not share this faith the idea of progress becomes questionable.[20]
Alfred Marshall (1842–1924), a British economist of the early 20th century, was a proponent of classical liberalism. In his highly influential Principles of Economics (1890), he was deeply interested in human progress and in what is now called sustainable development. For Marshall, the importance of wealth lay in its ability to promote the physical, mental, and moral health of the general population.[21] After World War II, the modernization and development programs undertaken in the Third World were typically based on the idea of progress.[22]
In Russia the notion of progress was first imported from the West by Peter the Great (1672–1725). An absolute ruler, he used the concept to modernize Russia and to legitimize his monarchy (unlike its usage in Western Europe, where it was primarily associated with political opposition). By the early 19th century, the notion of progress was being taken up by Russian intellectuals and was no longer accepted as legitimate by the tsars. Four schools of thought on progress emerged in 19th-century Russia: conservative (reactionary), religious, liberal, and socialist—the latter winning out in the form of Bolshevist materialism.[23]
The intellectual leaders of the American Revolution, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, were immersed in Enlightenment thought and believed the idea of progress meant that they could reorganize the political system to the benefit of the human condition; both for Americans and also, as Jefferson put it, for an "Empire of Liberty" that would benefit all mankind.[24] In particular, Adams wrote “I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.”[citation needed]
Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810–1884) was one of the most influential political theorists in Argentina. Economic liberalism was the key to his idea of progress. He promoted faith in progress, while chiding fellow Latin Americans for blind copying of American and European models. He hoped for progress through promotion of immigration, education, and a moderate type of federalism and republicanism that might serve as a transition in Argentina to true democracy.[25]
In Mexico, José María Luis Mora (1794–1850) was a leader of classical liberalism in the first generation after independence, leading the battle against the conservative trinity of the army, the church, and the hacendados. He envisioned progress as both a process of human development by the search for philosophical truth and as the introduction of an era of material prosperity by technological advancement. His plan for Mexican reform demanded a republican government bolstered by widespread popular education free of clerical control, confiscation and sale of ecclesiastical lands as a means of redistributing income and clearing government debts, and effective control of a reduced military force by the government. Mora also demanded the establishment of legal equality between native Mexicans and foreign residents. His program, untried in his lifetime, became the key element in the Mexican Constitution of 1857.[26]
In Italy, the idea that progress in science and technology would lead to solutions for human ills was connected to the nationalism that united the country in 1860. The Piedmontese Prime Minister Camillo Cavour envisaged the railways as a major factor in the modernization and unification of the Italian peninsula. The new Kingdom of Italy, formed in 1861, worked to speed up the processes of modernization and industrialization that had begun in the north, but were slow to arrive in the Papal States and central Italy, and were nowhere in sight in the "Mezzogiorno" (that is, Southern Italy, Sicily, and Sardinia). The government sought to combat the backwardness of the poorer regions in the south and work towards augmenting the size and quality of the newly created Italian army so that it could compete on an equal footing with the powerful nations of Europe. In the same period, the government was legislating in favour of public education to fight the great problem of illiteracy, upgrade the teaching classes, improve existing schools, and procure the funds needed for social hygiene and care of the body as factors in the physical and moral regeneration of the race.[27]
In China, in the 20th century the Kuomintang or Nationalist party, which ruled from the 1920s to the 1940s, advocated progress. The Communists under Mao Zedong adopted western models and their ruinous projects caused mass famines. After Mao's death, however, the new regime led by Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997) and his successors aggressively promoted modernization of the economy using capitalist models and imported western technology.[28] This was termed the "Opening of China" in the west, and more broadly encompasses Chinese economic reform.
Among environmentalists, there is a continuum between two opposing poles. The one pole is optimistic, progressive, and business-oriented, and endorses the classic idea of progress. For example, bright green environmentalism endorses the idea that new designs, social innovations and green technologies can solve critical environmental challenges. The other is pessimistic in respect of technological solutions,[29] warning of impending global crisis (through climate change or peak oil, for example) and tends to reject the very idea of modernity and the myth of progress that is so central to modernization thinking.[30] Similarly, Kirkpatrick Sale, wrote about progress as a myth benefiting the few, and a pending environmental doomsday for everyone.[31] An example is the philosophy of Deep Ecology.
Filosofía
Sociologist Robert Nisbet said that "No single idea has been more important than ... the Idea of Progress in Western civilization for three thousand years",[32] and defines five "crucial premises" of the idea of progress:
- value of the past
- nobility of Western civilization
- worth of economic/technological growth
- faith in reason and scientific/scholarly knowledge obtained through reason
- intrinsic importance and worth of life on earth
Sociologist P. A. Sorokin said, "The ancient Chinese, Babylonian, Hindu, Greek, Roman, and most of the medieval thinkers supporting theories of rhythmical, cyclical or trendless movements of social processes were much nearer to reality than the present proponents of the linear view".[33] Unlike Confucianism and to a certain extent Taoism, that both search for an ideal past, the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition believes in the fulfillment of history, which was translated into the idea of progress in the modern age. Therefore, Chinese proponents of modernization have looked to western models. According to Thompson, the late Qing dynasty reformer, Kang Youwei, believed he had found a model for reform and "modernisation" in the Ancient Chinese Classics.[34]
Philosopher Karl Popper said that progress was not fully adequate as a scientific explanation of social phenomena.[35] More recently, Kirkpatrick Sale, a self-proclaimed neo-luddite author, wrote exclusively about progress as a myth, in an essay entitled "Five Facets of a Myth".[36]
Iggers (1965) says that proponents of progress underestimated the extent of man's destructiveness and irrationality, while critics misunderstand the role of rationality and morality in human behavior.[37]
In 1946, psychoanalyst Charles Baudouin claimed modernity has retained the "corollary" of the progress myth, the idea that the present is superior to the past, while at the same time insisting that it is free of the myth:
The last two centuries were familiar with the myth of progress. Our own century has adopted the myth of modernity. The one myth has replaced the other. ...
Men ceased to believe in progress; but only to pin their faith to more tangible realities, whose sole original significance had been that they were the instruments of progress. ..
This exaltation of the present ... is a corollary of that very faith in progress which people claim to have discarded. The present is superior to the past, by definition, only in a mythology of progress. Thus one retains the corollary while rejecting the principle. There is only one way of retaining a position of whose instability one is conscious. One must simply refrain from thinking.[38]
A cyclical theory of history was adopted by Oswald Spengler (1880–1936), a German historian who wrote The Decline of the West in 1920. World War I, World War II, and the rise of totalitarianism demonstrated that progress was not automatic and that technological improvement did not necessarily guarantee democracy and moral advancement. British historian Arnold J. Toynbee (1889–1975) felt that Christianity would help modern civilization overcome its challenges.[39]
The Jeffersonians said that history is not exhausted but that man may begin again in a new world. Besides rejecting the lessons of the past, they Americanized the idea of progress by democratizing and vulgarizing it to include the welfare of the common man as a form of republicanism. As Romantics deeply concerned with the past, collecting source materials and founding historical societies, the Founding Fathers were animated by clear principles. They saw man in control of his destiny, saw virtue as a distinguishing characteristic of a republic, and were concerned with happiness, progress, and prosperity. Thomas Paine, combining the spirit of rationalism and romanticism, pictured a time when America's innocence would sound like a romance, and concluded that the fall of America could mark the end of 'the noblest work of human wisdom.'[24]
Historian J. B. Bury wrote in 1920:[40]
To the minds of most people the desirable outcome of human development would be a condition of society in which all the inhabitants of the planet would enjoy a perfectly happy existence....It cannot be proved that the unknown destination towards which man is advancing is desirable. The movement may be Progress, or it may be in an undesirable direction and therefore not Progress..... The Progress of humanity belongs to the same order of ideas as Providence or personal immortality. It is true or it is false, and like them it cannot be proved either true or false. Belief in it is an act of faith.
In the postmodernist thought steadily gaining ground from the 1980s, the grandiose claims of the modernizers are steadily eroded, and the very concept of social progress is again questioned and scrutinized. In the new vision, radical modernizers like Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong appear as totalitarian despots, whose vision of social progress is held to be totally deformed. Postmodernists question the validity of 19th-century and 20th-century notions of progress—both on the capitalist and the Marxist side of the spectrum. They argue that both capitalism and Marxism over-emphasize technological achievements and material prosperity while ignoring the value of inner happiness and peace of mind. Postmodernism posits that both dystopia and utopia are one and the same, overarching grand narratives with impossible conclusions.
Some 20th-century authors refer to the "Myth of Progress" to refer to the idea that the human condition will inevitably improve. In 1932, English physician Montague David Eder wrote: "The myth of progress states that civilization has moved, is moving, and will move in a desirable direction. Progress is inevitable... Philosophers, men of science and politicians have accepted the idea of the inevitability of progress."[41] Eder argues that the advancement of civilization is leading to greater unhappiness and loss of control in the environment. The strongest critics of the idea of progress complain that it remains a dominant idea in the 21st century, and shows no sign of diminished influence. As one fierce critic, British historian John Gray (b. 1948), concludes:[42]
Faith in the liberating power of knowledge is encrypted into modern life. Drawing on some of Europe's most ancient traditions, and daily reinforced by the quickening advance of science, it cannot be given up by an act of will. The interaction of quickening scientific advance with unchanging human needs is a fate that we may perhaps temper, but cannot overcome... Those who hold to the possibility of progress need not fear. The illusion that through science humans can remake the world is an integral part of the modern condition. Renewing the eschatological hopes of the past, progress is an illusion with a future.
Recently the idea of progress has been generalized to psychology, being related with the concept of a goal, that is, progress is understood as "what counts as a means of advancing towards the end result of a given defined goal."[citation needed]
Antiquity
Historian J. B. Bury said that thought in ancient Greece was dominated by the theory of world-cycles or the doctrine of eternal return, and was steeped in a belief parallel to the Judaic "fall of man," but rather from a preceding "Golden Age" of innocence and simplicity. Time was generally regarded as the enemy of humanity which depreciates the value of the world. He credits the Epicureans with having had a potential for leading to the foundation of a theory of progress through their materialistic acceptance of the atomism of Democritus as the explanation for a world without an intervening deity.
For them, the earliest condition of men resembled that of the beasts, and from this primitive and miserable condition they laboriously reached the existing state of civilisation, not by external guidance or as a consequence of some initial design, but simply by the exercise of human intelligence throughout a long period.[citation needed]
Robert Nisbet and Gertrude Himmelfarb have attributed a notion of progress to other Greeks. Xenophanes said "The gods did not reveal to men all things in the beginning, but men through their own search find in the course of time that which is better."
Renaissance
During the Medieval period, science was to a large extent based on Scholastic (a method of thinking and learning from the Middle Ages) interpretations of Aristotle's work. The Renaissance of the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries changed the mindset in Europe towards an empirical view, based on a pantheistic interpretation of Plato. This induced a revolution in curiosity about nature in general and scientific advance, which opened the gates for technical and economic advance. Furthermore, the individual potential was seen as a never-ending quest for being God-like, paving the way for a view of Man based on unlimited perfection and progress.[43]
The Enlightenment (1650–1800)
In the Enlightenment, French historian and philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) was a major proponent of progress.[citation needed] At first Voltaire's thought was informed by the idea of progress coupled with rationalism. His subsequent notion of the historical idea of progress saw science and reason as the driving forces behind societal advancement.
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argued that progress is neither automatic nor continuous and does not measure knowledge or wealth, but is a painful and largely inadvertent passage from barbarism through civilization toward enlightened culture and the abolition of war. Kant called for education, with the education of humankind seen as a slow process whereby world history propels mankind toward peace through war, international commerce, and enlightened self-interest.[44]
Scottish theorist Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) defined human progress as the working out of a divine plan, though he rejected predestination. The difficulties and dangers of life provided the necessary stimuli for human development, while the uniquely human ability to evaluate led to ambition and the conscious striving for excellence. But he never adequately analyzed the competitive and aggressive consequences stemming from his emphasis on ambition even though he envisioned man's lot as a perpetual striving with no earthly culmination. Man found his happiness only in effort.[45]
Some scholars consider the idea of progress that was affirmed with the Enlightenment, as a secularization of ideas from early Christianity, and a reworking of ideas from ancient Greece.[46][47][48]
Romanticism
In the 19th century, Romantic critics charged that progress did not automatically better the human condition, and in some ways could make it worse.[49] Thomas Malthus (1766–1834) reacted against the concept of progress as set forth by William Godwin and Condorcet because he believed that inequality of conditions is "the best (state) calculated to develop the energies and faculties of man". He said, "Had population and food increased in the same ratio, it is probable that man might never have emerged from the savage state". He argued that man's capacity for improvement has been demonstrated by the growth of his intellect, a form of progress which offsets the distresses engendered by the law of population.[50]
German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) criticized the idea of progress as the 'weakling's doctrines of optimism,' and advocated undermining concepts such as faith in progress, to allow the strong individual to stand above the plebeian masses. An important part of his thinking consists of the attempt to use the classical model of 'eternal recurrence of the same' to dislodge the idea of progress.[51]
Iggers (1965) argues there was general agreement in the late 19th century that the steady accumulation of knowledge and the progressive replacement of conjectural, that is, theological or metaphysical, notions by scientific ones was what created progress. Most scholars concluded this growth of scientific knowledge and methods led to the growth of industry and the transformation of warlike societies into industrial and pacific ones. They agreed as well that there had been a systematic decline of coercion in government, and an increasing role of liberty and of rule by consent. There was more emphasis on impersonal social and historical forces; progress was increasingly seen as the result of an inner logic of society.[52]
Marxist theory (late 19th century)
Marx developed a theory of historical materialism. He describes the mid-19th-century condition in The Communist Manifesto as follows:
The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty, and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all which is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.[53]
Furthermore, Marx described the process of social progress, which in his opinion is based on the interaction between the productive forces and the relations of production:
No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society.[54]
Capitalism is thought by Marx as a process of continual change, in which the growth of markets dissolve all fixities in human life, and Marx admits that capitalism is progressive and non-reactionary. Marxism further states that capitalism, in its quest for higher profits and new markets, will inevitably sow the seeds of its own destruction. Marxists believe that, in the future, capitalism will be replaced by socialism and eventually communism.
Many advocates of capitalism such as Schumpeter agreed with Marx's analysis of capitalism as a process of continual change through creative destruction, but, unlike Marx, believed and hoped that capitalism could essentially go on forever.
Thus, by the beginning of the 20th century, two opposing schools of thought—Marxism and liberalism—believed in the possibility and the desirability of continual change and improvement. Marxists strongly opposed capitalism and the liberals strongly supported it, but the one concept they could both agree on was progress, which affirms the power of human beings to make, improve and reshape their society, with the aid of scientific knowledge, technology and practical experimentation. Modernity denotes cultures that embrace that concept of progress. (This is not the same as modernism, which was the artistic and philosophical response to modernity, some of which embraced technology while rejecting individualism, but more of which rejected modernity entirely.)
Ver también
- Accelerating change
- Constitutional economics
- Global social change research project
- Happiness economics
- Leisure satisfaction
- Manifest Destiny
- Money-rich, time-poor
- Moral progress
- Progressive utilization theory
- Psychometrics
- Social development
- Social change
- Social justice
- Social order
- Social regress
- Sociocultural evolution
- Technological progress
- Techno-progressivism
Notas
- ^ "Progress definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary".
- ^ "Progress | Meaning of Progress by Lexico".
- ^ "PROGRESS | meaning in the Cambridge English Dictionary".
- ^ "Progress". Progress definition. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2019.
- ^ "About". Our World in Data. Retrieved 2019-08-23.
- ^ "Our World in Data". Our World in Data. Retrieved 2019-08-23.
- ^ a b c d Wesseling, Henk (August 1998). "History: Science or art?". European Review. 6 (3): 265–267. doi:10.1017/S106279870000329X. ISSN 1474-0575.
- ^ Golinski, Jan (2001). Making Natural Knowledge: Constructivism and the History of Science (reprint ed.). University of Chicago Press. p. 2. ISBN 9780226302324.
When [history of science] began, during the eighteenth century, it was practiced by scientists (or "natural philosophers") with an interest in validating and defending their enterprise. They wrote histories in which ... the science of the day was exhibited as the outcome of the progressive accumulation of human knowledge, which was an integral part of moral and cultural development.
- ^ Kuhn, T., 1962, "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", University of Chicago Press, p. 137: "Partly by selection and partly by distortion, the scientists of earlier ages are implicitly presented as having worked upon the same set of fixed problems and in accordance with the same set of fixed canons that the most recent revolution in scientific theory and method made seem scientific."
- ^ a b Nisbet, Robert (1980). History of the Idea of Progress. New York: Basic Books Ch. 5
- ^ a b c Porter M (10 April 2015). "Why social progress matters". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 18 April 2021.
- ^ Allen, Ann Taylor (1999). "Feminism, Social Science, and the Meanings of Modernity: the Debate on the Origin of the Family in Europe and the United States, 1860–914," American Historical Review 104 (4): 1085–113; Nyland, Chris (1993). "Adam Smith, Stage Theory, and the Status of Women," History of Political Economy 25 (4): 617–40.
- ^ Kontler, László (2004). "Beauty or Beast, or Monstrous Regiments? Robertson and Burke on Women and the Public Scene," Modern Intellectual History 1 (3): 305–30.
- ^ Dimand, Robert William, & Chris Nyland (2003). The Status of Women in Classical Economic Thought. Edward Elgar Publishing, p. 109; Ryrie, Charles Caldwell (1958). The Place of Women in the Church, The Macmillan Company, Ch 1.
- ^ Vernoff, Edward, & Peter J. Seybolt, (2007). Through Chinese Eyes: Tradition, Revolution, and Transformation, APEX Press, pp. 45ff.
- ^ Marx, Leo, & Bruce Mazlish (1998). Progress: Fact or Illusion?. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, p. 5.
- ^ Appleby, Joyce; Lynn Hunt, and Margaret Jacob (1995). Telling the Truth about History. W.W. Norton, p. 78.
- ^ The following annotated reference list appears in J. B. Bury's study: The Idea of Progress, published in 1920 and available in full on the web:
The history of the idea of Progress has been treated briefly and partially by various French writers; e.g. Comte, Cours de philosophie positive, vi. 321 sqq.; Buchez, Introduction a la science de l'histoire, i. 99 sqq. (ed. 2, 1842); Javary, De l'idee de progres (1850); Rigault, Histoire de la querelle des Anciens et des Modernes (1856); Bouillier, Histoire de la philosophie cartesienne (1854); Caro, Problemes de la morale sociale (1876); Brunetiere, "La Formation de l'idee de progres", in Etudes critiques, 5e serie. More recently M. Jules Delvaille has attempted to trace its history fully, down to the end of the eighteenth century. His Histoire de l'idee de progres (1910) is planned on a large scale; he is erudite and has read extensively. But his treatment is lacking in the power of discrimination. He strikes one as anxious to bring within his net, as theoriciens du progres, as many distinguished thinkers as possible; and so, along with a great deal that is useful and relevant, we also find in his book much that is irrelevant. He has not clearly seen that the distinctive idea of Progress was not conceived in antiquity or in the Middle Ages, or even in the Renaissance period; and when he comes to modern times he fails to bring out clearly the decisive steps of its growth. And he does not seem to realize that a man might be "progressive" without believing in, or even thinking about, the doctrine of Progress. Leonardo da Vinci and Berkeley are examples. In my Ancient Greek Historians (1909) I dwelt on the modern origin of the idea (p. 253 sqq.). Recently Mr. R. H. Murray, in a learned appendix to his Erasmus and Luther, has developed the thesis that Progress was not grasped in antiquity (though he makes an exception of Seneca),—a welcome confirmation.
- ^ Pangle, Thomas L. (1990). The Spirit of Modern Republicanism: The Moral Vision of the American Founders and the Philosophy of Locke. University of Chicago Press.[page needed]
- ^ Nisbet (1980) pp. 224–29.
- ^ Caldari, Katia (2004). "Alfred Marshall's Idea of Progress and Sustainable Development," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 26 (4): 519–36.
- ^ Arndt, H. W. (1989). Economic Development: The History of an Idea. University of Chicago Press.[page needed]
- ^ Ellison, Herbert J. (1965). "Economic Modernization in Imperial Russia: Purposes and Achievements," Journal of Economic History 25 (4): 523–40.
- ^ a b Commager, Henry Steele (1969). "The Past as an Extension of the Present," Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 17–27.
- ^ Dougherty, John E. (1973). "Juan Bautista Alberdi: A Study of His Thought," Americas 29 (4): 489–501.
- ^ Hart, John M. (1972). "Jose Mora: His Idea of Progress and the Origins of Mexican Liberalism," North Dakota Quarterly 40 (2): 22–29.
- ^ DalLago, Enrico (2002). The American South and the Italian Mezzogiorno: Essays in Comparative History. Palgrave Macmillan.
- ^ Smirnov, Dmitry (2004). "Deng Xiaoping and the Modernization of China," Far Eastern Affairs 32 (4): 20–31.
- ^ Huesemann, Michael H., and Joyce A. Huesemann (2011). Technofix: Why Technology Won’t Save Us or the Environment, Chapter 9, "Technological Optimism and Belief in Progress", New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, British Columbia, Canada, ISBN 0865717044, 464 pp.
- ^ Jamison, Andrew (2001). The Making of Green Knowledge: Environmental Politics and Cultural Transformation. Cambridge University Press, pp 28ff.
- ^ "Five Facets of a Myth". Archived from the original on 2009-07-09. Retrieved 2018-07-03.
- ^ Nisbet (1980) p. 4.
- ^ P. A. Sorokin, 1932 paper, quoted in Fay (1947).
- ^ Youwei, Kang, & Lawrence G. Thompson (1958). Ta T'ung Shu: The One World Philosophy of Kang Yu-wei. London: Allen & Unwin.
- ^ Popper (1957). The Poverty of Historicism. Routledge.
- ^ "Five Facets of a Myth". www.hermetic.ch.
- ^ Iggers (1965) p. 16.
- ^ Charles Baudouin, The Myth of Modernity, Le Mythe du moderne (1946), as translated by Bernard Miall (1950), sections 1–7.
- ^ Farrenkopf, John (1993). "Spengler's Historical Pessimism and the Tragedy of our Age," Theory and Society Vol. 22, Number 3, pp. 391–412.
- ^ Bury (1920). The Idea of Progress. London: Macmillan and Co., p. 2.
- ^ David Eder, Montague (1932). "General: M. D. Eder. 'The Myth of Progress.' The British Journal of Medical Psychology, 1932, Vol. XII, p. 1". International Journal of Psychoanalysis. 14: 399.
- ^ Gray, John (2004). "An Illusion with a Future," Daedalus Vol. 133(3), pp 10+; also Gray (2004). Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions. Granta Books.
- ^ Cassirer, Ernst; Paul Oskar Kristeller and John Herman Randall (eds., 1948). The Renaissance Philosophy of Man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.[page needed]
- ^ Schuler, Jeanne A. (1991). "Reasonable Hope: Kant as Critical Theorist," History of European Ideas, 21 (4): 527–33.
- ^ Bernstein, John Andrew (1978). "Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Progress," Studies in Burke and His Time 19 (2): 99–118.
- ^ The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political Thought By David Miller, Janet Coleman, p.402.
- ^ Nisbet, Robert (1980). History of the Idea of Progress. New York: Basic Books.
- ^ Ludwig Edelstein takes a minority view in seeing evidence for The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity, Johns Hopkins Press (1967).
- ^ Murray, Christopher John, ed. (2004). Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760–1850. Fitzroy Dearborn, Vol. II, p. 912.
- ^ Levin, Samuel M. (1966). "Malthus and the Idea of Progress," Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1): 92–108.
- ^ Tassone, Giuseppe (2002). A Study on the Idea of Progress in Nietzsche, Heidegger and Critical Theory. E. Mellen Press.
- ^ Iggers, George G. (1965). "The Idea of Progress: A Critical Reassessment," American Historical Review, Vol. 71, No. 1, pp. 1–17.
- ^ Manifesto of the Communist Party: Chapter 1, Marx & Engels
- ^ Marx, Karl. "Preface". Critique of political economy.
Otras lecturas
- Alexander, Jeffrey C., & Piotr Sztompka (1990). Rethinking Progress: Movements, Forces, and Ideas at the End of the 20th Century. Boston: Unwin Hymans.
- Becker, Carl L. (1932). Progress and Power. Stanford University Press.
- Benoist, Alan de (2008). "A Brief History of the Idea of Progress," The Occidental Quarterly, Vol. VIII, No. 1, pp. 7–16.
- Brunetière, Ferdinand (1922). "La Formation de l'Idée de Progrés." In: Études Critiques. Paris: Librairie Hachette, pp. 183–250.
- Burgess, Yvonne (1994). The Myth of Progress. Wild Goose Publications.
- Bury, J.B. (1920). The Idea of Progress: An Inquiry into Its Origin and Growth (mirror). London: The Macmillan and Co.
- Dawson, Christopher (1929). Progress and Religion. London: Sheed & Ward.
- Dodds, E.R. (1985). The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Doren, Charles Van (1967). The Idea of Progress. New York: Praeger.
- Fay, Sidney B. (1947). "The Idea of Progress," American Historical Review, Vol. 52, No. 2, pp. 231–46 in JSTOR, reflections after two world wars.
- Hahn, Lewis Edwin and Paul Arthur Schilpp (eds.).(1999). The Philosophy of Georg Henrik von Wright. Open Court.
- Iggers, Georg G. (1965). "The Idea of Progress: A Critical Reassessment," American Historical Review, Vol. 71, No. 1, pp. 1–17 in JSTOR, emphasis on 20th-century philosophies of history
- Inge, William Ralph (1922). "The Idea of Progress." In: Outspoken Essays, Second series. London: Longmans, Green & Co., pp. 158–83.
- Kauffman, Bill. (1998). With Good Intentions? Reflections on the Myth of Progress in America. Praeger online edition, based on interviews in a small town.
- Lasch, Christopher (1991). The True and Only Heaven: Progress and Its Critics. W. W. Norton online edition
- Mackenzie, J. S. (1899). "The Idea of Progress," International Journal of Ethics, Vol. IX, No. 2, pp. 195–213, representative of late 19th-century approaches
- Mathiopoulos, Margarita. History and Progress: In Search of the European and American Mind (1989) online edition
- Melzer, Arthur M. et al. eds. History and the Idea of Progress (1995), scholars discuss Machiavelli, Kant, Nietzsche, Spengler and others online edition
- Nisbet, Robert (1979). "The Idea of Progress," Literature of Liberty, Vol. II, No. 1, pp. 7–37.
- Nisbet, Robert (1980). History of the Idea of Progress. New York: Basic Books.
- Painter, George S. (1922). "The Idea of Progress," American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 28, No. 3, pp. 257–82.
- Pollard, Sidney (1971). The Idea of Progress: History and Society. New York: Pelican.
- Rescher, Nicholas; Scientific Progress (Oxford: Blackwells, 1978).
- Ryan, Christopher (2019). Civilized to Death: The Price of Progress. Simon & Schuster
- Sklair, Leslie (1970). The Sociology of Progress. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. online edition
- Slaboch, Matthew W. (2018). A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics. Philadelphia: The University of Pennsylvania Press.
- Spadafora, David (1990). The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth Century Britain. Yale University Press.
- Spalding, Henry Norman, Civilization in East and West : an introduction to the study of human progress, London, Oxford university press, H. Milford, 1939.
- Teggart, F. J. (1949). The Idea of Progress: A Collection of Readings. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Tuveson, Ernest Lee (1949). Millennium and Utopia: A Study in the Background of the Idea of Progress. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Zarandi, Merhdad M., ed. (2004). Science and the Myth of Progress. World Wisdom Books.
enlaces externos
- 1969 United Nations Declaration on Social Progress and Development
- United Nations Economic and Social Development
- The Venus Project