The Human Progress Podcast

Why do some civilizations flourish while others stagnate? Martin Seligman, a psychologist, author, and founder of the modern positive psychology movement, suggests that the answer may lie not just in institutions or technology, but in what people believe they can achieve.

In his latest book, Agency: The Psychological History of Human Progress, Seligman argues that agency, the belief in our ability to shape the future, has been a powerful driver of innovation and human progress.

In this episode of The Human Progress Podcast, our research fellow Adam Omary and Cato Institute senior fellow Johan Norberg speak with Seligman about the historical role of human agency, its relationship to freedom and optimism, the psychology of learned helplessness, why pessimism can undermine progress, and whether artificial intelligence will strengthen or weaken our ability to shape the future.

Americans have never been more aware of mental health. Therapy is more accessible, psychiatric diagnoses are more common, and the language of trauma and self-care has entered everyday life. Yet by many measures, mental health in America appears to be worsening.

In his new book, Therapy Nation: How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It’s Left Us More Anxious and Divided, psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert argues that the mental health profession may be partly responsible for that paradox.

In this episode of The Human Progress Podcast, our research fellow Adam Omary speaks with Alpert about psychiatric overdiagnosis, the rise of therapy culture, the benefits and dangers of mental health labels, why therapy can sometimes backfire, and how a stronger sense of personal agency can help people become happier and more resilient.

The United States has spent decades trying to reduce poverty through an expanding social safety net. But how much of the country’s progress against poverty is thanks to that redistribution, and how much has come from economic growth?In a recent paper, American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Kevin Corinth and economist Richard Burkhauser examine nearly a century of American poverty trends. They find that poverty was already falling rapidly before the War on Poverty began, when government transfers played a much smaller role and rising market incomes drove much of the improvement.In this episode of The Human Progress Podcast, our research fellow Chelsea Follett speaks with Corinth about how we measure poverty, the relative roles of economic growth and redistribution in reducing it, the trade-offs created by the social safety net, the lessons of 1990s welfare reform, and why economic growth remains essential to lifting people out of poverty.

Our research fellow Chelsea Follett speaks with Walker Wright about the moral character of markets, the relationship between economic freedom and good behavior, the effects of commerce on prejudice and violence, and why buying and selling from one another may help make us better people.

Our editor Marian Tupy speaks with economist Brian Albrecht about the role of prices in modern prosperity.

They discuss why price controls fail, whether scarcity can ever truly disappear, the difference between large companies and monopolies, price discrimination, and the underappreciated ways in which competitive markets enrich our lives.

Dr. Brian C. Albrecht is the chief economist at the International Center for Law & Economics and author of the Economic Forces newsletter.

Our managing editor Chelsea Follett speaks with economist Michael Strain about the myth of American decline and the dangers of populism. They discuss the rise of populism on the left and right, the evidence that American living standards have improved, why inequality does not explain today’s political discontent, and how policies built on a false diagnosis of national failure could undermine the prosperity and opportunity they promise to restore.

The Gilded Age has become one of the most common analogies for our own time, invoked as shorthand for economic inequality and political corruption. But that comparison misses much of what made the period extraordinary. After the Civil War, the United States experienced an incredible period of economic growth that completely transformed American life and landscapes.

In this episode of The Human Progress Podcast, economic historian Brian Domitrovic joins our managing editor Chelsea Follett to discuss why the conventional story of the Gilded Age is incomplete, how industrialization made ordinary Americans better off, and what we can learn from the triumphs of the Gilded Age.

The industrial food system is often treated as a symbol of everything people distrust about modernity: too processed, too corporate, too artificial, and too detached from land and labor.

That critique obscures one of the greatest achievements in human history: modern food production has made food cheaper, safer, more abundant, and more varied than ever before.

In this episode of The Human Progress Podcast, Adam Omary speaks with political scientist Jan Dutkiewicz about his new book Feed the People: Why Industrial Food Is Good and How We Can Make It Even Better. They discuss the great achievements of the industrial food system, the panic over processed foods, nostalgia for preindustrial agriculture, and how to make food healthier and more sustainable without giving up the system that feeds us.

Roger Pielke Jr. joins Marian Tupy to discuss the latest climate research and how to think clearly about climate change.

Samuel Gregg joins Chelsea Follett to discuss the rise of a more interventionist economic consensus and the case for markets in modern America.

Check out his book, The Next American Economy: Nation, State, and Markets in an Uncertain World.

Steven Pinker joins Marian Tupy to discuss the so-called "crisis of meaning," the decline of religion, and what can give life purpose in a modern, largely secular world.

Our editor Marian Tupy speaks with writer and policy scholar Brink Lindsey about his new book The Permanent Problem: The Uncertain Transition from Mass Plenty to Mass Flourishing.

They discuss why material abundance produces dissatisfaction, the decline of marriage and community, bureaucratic stagnation, and the cultural and institutional innovations needed to produce mass satisfaction without scarcity.

Environmentalists often claim that solving climate change requires scarcity: less energy, less consumption, and less economic growth.

Zion Lights, a former radical environmentalist, now argues the opposite—that energy abundance is necessary for both thriving human societies and environmental protection. Her latest book, Energy Is Life, tells the story of her journey from Extinction Rebellion activist to outspoken advocate for nuclear power.

In this episode of The Human Progress Podcast, Zion Lights joins Chelsea Follett to discuss how modern environmentalism became fixated on scarcity, how nuclear power became so misunderstood, and why energy is essential to human wellbeing.

Johan Norberg examines the conditions that create human flourishing and why golden ages so often come to an end.

Buy his book, Peak Human.

Psychologist Chris Ferguson joins Adam Omary to discuss American mental health, cognitive biases, and the dangers of narrative overreach.

Buy his book, Catastrophe!: How Psychology Explains Why Good People Make Bad Situations Worse.Read his article on loneliness.

Scott Winship joins Marian Tupy to discuss how bad measurement choices distort the picture of poverty and inequality in the United States.

Yaron Brook joins Marian Tupy to discuss the pessimistic populism of the New Right.

Policy analyst Marcos Falcone joins Chelsea Follett to discuss Milei’s recent electoral success and the economic reforms he might pursue using this new political leverage.

Peter Boettke joins Marian Tupy to examine the institutional foundations of the modern world. Check out his book, The Historical Path to Liberty and Human Progress.

Sarah McLaughlin joins Chelsea Follett to discuss the rising influence of foreign authoritarian governments on college campuses.

Check out her book, Authoritarians in the Academy: How the Internationalization of Higher Education and Borderless Censorship Threaten Free Speech.

Please note that we recorded this interview before Kirk’s murder, so he is not mentioned, though we believe that event makes conversations like this one even more relevant.