My Conversion from Anti-Industrialist to Lover of Human Progress

By Johan Norberg

Sometimes when I talk and write about the importance of science, technology, and entrepreneurship to human opportunity and living standards, people ask me why I seem so obsessed with progress.

There is a simple reason: I did not use to believe in it.

When I was around fifteen, I shared many of the ideas of the people I now spend my time arguing against. I…