How Progress Ends by Carl Benedikt Frey examines technological and economic development over the past 1,000 years, arguing that it has hinged on a balance between decentralised innovation and centralised implementation. Though its emphasis on linear progression could face challenge, this nuanced historical study sets out a compelling set of principles on what enables technological development to succeed at scale, writes Phil Bell.
Progress is fragile. According to Carl Benedikt Frey, it requires a delicate sequence of innovation and efficient application. This explains why the world is now threatened by low growth. Vested interests dampen the US’s ability to leverage its decentralised economy for innovation, while greater centralisation in China puts their dynamism at risk.
The driver of ‘progress’ is technology. Whether states can leverage growth from tech depends on the circumstances
For such a sweeping general history (covering the economic progress of nations over the past 1,000 years) Frey’s argument is nuanced. The driver of “progress” is technology. Whether states can leverage growth from tech depends on the circumstances, and specifically whether there are already technological innovations ready to be utilised (what he calls “low hanging fruit”). If not, decentralised “exploration” is required to push the technological frontier before centralised “exploitation” can take advantage. Vertically organised bureaucracies such as those found during the Meiji restoration in Japan (1868) were able to rapidly exploit new technologies, such as railways, because of their ability, and will, to apply techniques at economies of scale. Bismarckian Prussia, underpinned by a comprehensive education system, libraries, robust investment banks and hierarchical management in both civil service and corporations, could exploit advances in chemicals and machine tools in the 19th century.
Decentralised innovation and diffused knowledge
According to Frey’s argument, Meiji Japan and Bismarckian Germany were only successful because technological innovation had taken place elsewhere (through decentralised, horizontally structured organisations). Two key examples of decentralised “exploration” are the Industrial Revolution in the UK (c.1750 to 1900) and the so-called Second Industrial Revolution in the US (c.1870 to 1914). The industrial revolution was, in Joel Mokyr’s well-known argument, characterised by inventors and tinkerers who played with new technologies and adapted them alongside others in learned societies and informal networks. This is exactly the horizontal diffusion of knowledge Frey sees as key to decentralised innovation. As Frey notes, the “Birmingham Lunar Society” included the inventors of latent heat (Joseph Black) and the steam engine (James Watt) and the industrial revolution took place in Britain because of a dearth of “stifling” centralised bureaucracy.
The UK was the most inventive country from the mid-18th century until 1825, after which, according to Frey, the US took up that mantle. The central driver of US dynamism was its decentralised federal system, which is now under threat due to increases in corporate lobbying and vested interests stifling innovation. However, Frey’s prime example of a decentralised innovation engine is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Notably, DARPA was a government organisation set up in response to Sputnik which gave scientists a large degree of independence to test out ideas and enabled the development of the internet.
Implementation case studies from Russia to China
Frey’s training as a historian leads to a satisfyingly complex analysis. Not all centralised bureaucracies are effective at implementation. Russia under Peter the Great was a centralised state which was too autocratic to implement new technologies at scale. The nature of the technology in question also impacts which tool of leverage is most appropriate. The Soviet Union was able to catch up in the mid 20th century through vertical hierarchical organisation and bureaucracy. While this centralised approach worked for heavy industry it didn’t work for the computer age, and their inability to capitalise contributed to falling growth in the 1970s and 1980s.
China occupies a complex position within Frey’s constellation. It has the most storied state bureaucracy, established over 1000 years ago. Counterintuitively, according to Frey, China’s massive meritocratic state spurred the development of technologies from 1000-1400 making it the most technologically advanced polity in the world. However, this system dampened ‘diversity of thought’ over the long run in contrast to European local governance”. This reached its apex during the pragmatic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the 1970s involving the creation of special economic zones. His persistently pragmatic approach to reform (According to a recent report China is now ahead of the US in 57 of 64 critical technology categories. Interestingly, while Chinese solar mega projects centrally steered the fate of the global effort to prevent climate breakdown relies on China halting new coal plants, a policy area which was decentralised to provincial governments in 2014. Crucially, in Frey’s view, China’s dynamism is under threat of decline if the spirit of Deng’s decentralizing policies is not retained.
The limits of a “stagist” understanding of progress
Frey’s focus on “frontier technologies” assumes a stagist approach to technological history.This approach has been critiqued most famously by Edgerton in his seminal The Shock of the Old (2006), and recently by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz in his 2025 book More and More and More. Does progress really just rest on exploiting new technologies, given that they are almost always mixed up and hard to entangle from older ones? For example, training and harnessing AI requires massive energy, enabling gulf states to become major players. China’s recent AI+ energy strategy sets out a plan for a decentralised approach to AI diffusion and building the grid around AI. It’s not clear that the states which benefit most from AI won’t be those who have best exploited older technologies, such as nuclear and solar energy.
Was Deepseek R1 an innovation in new methods of leveraging hardware, or an exploitation of algorithms developed in the US? When does the sheer scale of Chinese implementation (rolling out more solar at the beginning of 2025 than the US has in its entire history) also become its own form of innovation, rather than simply ‘catching-up’?
Frey’s distinction between “invention” and ‘implementation’ also warrants interrogation. It follows Edgerton’s focus on the use of technologies as more historically significant than invention. Similarly, in his recent Technology and the Rise of Great Powers (2024) Jeffrey Ding argues that the state which can diffuse technology most effectively (not who can come up with leading inventions) is most likely to benefit from technological change. (Surprisingly, neither of these books are included in Frey’s bibliography). Frey’s argument is more nuanced than Ding’s, since his view of whether invention or implementation is more important depends on whether there are technologies available for exploiting. Still, the clean distinction in both books is tested by examples like the Taylorian factory system. Is it an example of innovation or implementation? Was Deepseek R1 an innovation in new methods of leveraging hardware, or an exploitation of algorithms developed in the US? When does the sheer scale of Chinese implementation (rolling out more solar at the beginning of 2025 than the US has in its entire history) also become its own form of innovation, rather than simply “catching-up”?
This book fits into a growing network of opinion that predicts US economic decline because of its inability to re-learn to build in the face of vested interests (including ‘nimbys’, lobbyists, regulators, legal challengers)
Frey does not go as far as to prescribe policy based on his analysis, but this book fits into a growing network of opinion that predicts US economic decline because of its inability to re-learn to build in the face of vested interests (including “nimbys”, lobbyists, regulators, legal challengers). Ezra Klein and Dan Wang, among others, have recently written books adding weight to transatlantic calls to say ‘Yes in My Back Yard’.
Explaining something as complex as the success of economies through the neat lens of institutional and technological structure is a tall order. Frey does so with rigour. Given the uncertainty of the present, the book should be taken not as a masterplan for progress to be exploited wholesale, but a set of principles to be tinkered with, adapted and explored.
Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Carl Benedikt Frey will speak at LSE at a public event at 6.30pm on Tuesday 21 October 2025. Find details and register.
Main image: StockCake.
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