Reflection: A Short History Of Progress By Ronald Wright

ENG 4A03 - Reflection on A Short History of Progress In Ronald Wright's book, "A Short History of Progress", he talks about many historical examples of "progress traps". He describes the term "progress trap" as an idea or technology that generates splendid results at first, but leads to a deadly, impossible end [1]. In other terms, a "progress trap" is a problem that inadvertently creates conditions that are worse than what existed prior to the innovation. In today's society, we place a significant amount of importance on maintaining a capitalistic economy. In other terms, our countries trade, industry and means of production are privately owned and operated for profit [2]. From our governments point of view, having and maintaining a capitalistic economy benefits economic growth and increases our standard of living. However, despite living in a system which enables us to be potentially successful, negative outcomes of the capitalistic system arise. Such negativities include consumerism, which is the consumption of goods and services in excess of one's basic needs, usually in greater and greater quantities [3]. Although consumerism is an issue in itself, a far greater underlying capitalistic ideology is planned obsolescence. The strategy

The society we live in today does not have an infinite economy and infinite supply of resources. If producers continue to produce with the mindset of having their goods replaced by consumers, the ecological footprint left by these consumers will become greater and the environment will be impacted as an increasing amount of natural resources are being consumed. Moreover, because these products aren't naturally produced, the extraction and production of these consumer goods will add to the increasing levels of pollution in our environment. And lastly, these products being replaced will become waste, adding to our increasing amounts of landfills across the