The Evolution of Progress: The End of Economic Growth and the Beginning of Human Transformation.

• Author: Lindsey, Brink

This book reminds me of Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man: an absurd but engaging thesis, thoughtfully and earnestly argued. Though the central argument ultimately runs aground, the journey toward the reefs is an interesting and thought-provoking one.

The author is C. Owen Paepke, a Phoenix, Arizona, attorney and "unabashed generalist," according to the jacket sleeve. His modest proposition is that the era of material progress, and its radical transformation of living standards over the last two centuries, is coming to an end. "The children of the 1980s and 1990s," he writes, "will exert about the same effort during their lifetimes, and will have their needs and wants satisfied to about the same degree, as their parents....Man's material state has arrived at its practical limits."

As economic growth peters out, a different form of progress, what Paepke calls "human progress," is now emerging: "The new kind of progress, which makes human traits and abilities the subject rather than just the source of change, will dominate the agenda of the next century, perhaps even the next decade." Thus, as the conditions under which human beings live enter a long stagnation, qualitative improvement of human beings themselves is now on the horizon. Paepke has in mind such things as the extension of the human life span and the augmentation of intelligence through chemical, genetic, and electronic means.

Unlike Club of Rome types, Paepke rejects the notion that finite resources pose limits to economic growth. "In practical terms," he says, "the planet's resources have become not scarcer, but more plentiful." Instead, he argues, material progress is grinding to a halt because of a combination of technological limitations and consumer satiety. In other words, for most of the things we do, there just isn't any appreciable room for improving how we do them--or if there is, people aren't willing to pay for it with the necessary savings and investments.

Paepke sees the past two centuries of economic growth as the product of four converging historical forces, all of which are nearly spent: technological innovation; the emergence of free-market institutions; market expansion through cross-border trade; and the accumulation of capital.

As to technology, here's the nub of his case in one paragraph:

"But technology, however ingenious, must obey physical laws, and those laws limit the tangible benefits to be realized from further advances. Consider...