Why do we live in unusually innovative times?

Summary

The Indicator from Planet Money

Episode: Why do we live in unusually innovative times?

Date: October 14, 2025
Host: Greg Rosalski (NPR)
Guest: Joel Mokyr, Economic Historian and Nobel Laureate
Runtime: ~10 minutes

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Episode Overview

This episode explores why technological innovation has accelerated so dramatically in recent centuries, examining the economic and historical factors behind this phenomenon. Host Greg Rosalski and Nobel laureate Joel Mokyr discuss how the scientific revolution bridged theory and practice, the critical role of societal openness to innovation, and the fragility of progress against resistance and vested interests. The conversation ties historical perspective to today's debates about AI, labor, and societal change.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Celebrating Economic History and the Nobel

• The episode opens with enthusiasm for the Nobel Prize announcement in economics, particularly because it acknowledges economic history’s importance.
• Joel Mokyr is celebrated for his work alongside recent laureates Philippe Allian and Peter Howard in understanding growth and innovation.
  Timestamp: 00:20–01:05

2. Life Before Innovation: The Grim Realities

• Medieval Europe featured many inventions (eyeglasses, mechanical clocks, ploughs), but they didn’t drive widespread prosperity.
• Joel Mokyr paints a bleak picture of pre-modern life, underscoring hard labor and persistent threats like famine and high infant mortality.

  “Lots of hard work, back breaking work, always a danger of not having enough to eat... Third of all, newborns died in infancy or before the age of one. Yes, thereabout grim.”
  — Joel Mokyr (02:52)

• Prosperity did not take off until a transformation in how knowledge was produced and applied. Timestamp: 02:18–03:14

3. The Two Types of Knowledge: Prescriptive vs. Propositional

• Prescriptive Knowledge: Practical, “how-to” instructions—applied but often lacking underlying understanding.
• Propositional Knowledge: Theoretical, focused on scientific laws and explanations.
• In the Middle Ages, these knowledge streams were separated: craftsmen and theorists rarely collaborated.

  “Book learning wasn't meeting the street smarts.”
  — Greg Rosalski (03:53) Timestamp: 03:14–04:23

4. The Scientific Revolution: Bridging the Divide

• The 17th century, led by thinkers like Francis Bacon, merged theoretical inquiry with practical testing—initiating a “feedback loop” between theory and application.
• This approach fostered refinements in technology and innovation (e.g., understanding atmospheric pressure led to better steam engines).

  “This feedback loop between theory and testing allowed for products to be refined and improved.”
  — Greg Rosalski (04:43)

• Crucially, explanations made new practices more persuasive (e.g., germ theory for handwashing). Timestamp: 04:23–05:32

5. Openness to Change: Institutions and Progress

• Mokyr emphasizes a society's openness to change is vital for sustained innovation.
• Historical institutions often resisted new technologies as threats to established interests. The expansion of political participation (e.g., British Parliament) gave more groups a voice to promote innovation.
• However, institutional openness fluctuates—there’s no guaranteed upward trajectory.

  “They do go up, they do go down... there are periods in which institutions all over the world were getting remarkably worse... there’s some evidence to show that that’s what’s happening today.”
  — Joel Mokyr (06:28) Timestamp: 05:32–06:50

6. The Social Costs of Progress

• Innovation brings disruption: job loss, bankruptcies, and resistance from vested interests (e.g., coal industry, Hollywood writers strike over AI).
• Mokyr asserts this is a recurring pattern: every technology has side effects and causes dislocation.

  “The price we pay for progress is bankruptcies, layoffs, and dislocation. While the world as a whole is better off in the long run, there are costs.”
  — Greg Rosalski (07:13) Timestamp: 06:50–07:47

7. Not an AI Doomer: Progress Shifts Work

• Mokyr takes an optimistic view of technological change:

  “Machines don't replace us. They move us to more interesting, more challenging work. And as AI moves us up to take these jobs over, people will move to even higher jobs.”
  — Joel Mokyr (07:51) Timestamp: 07:47–08:04

8. Progress Is Fragile and Not Guaranteed

• Mokyr warns technological progress is “fragile and vulnerable”—prone to setbacks and dependent on social climate and institutions.

  “Technological progress is like a fragile and vulnerable plant whose nourishing is not only dependent on the appropriate surroundings and climate, but whose life is almost always short and can easily be arrested by relatively small external changes.”
  — Joel Mokyr (08:04)

• Technology is neutral in effect—it’s how society chooses to use it:

  “You make a hammer... it can be used to build a home and it can be used to bash Abel and Cain's heads in…”
  — Joel Mokyr (08:47) Timestamp: 08:04–09:18

9. Why We Need Innovation for Today’s Crises

• Mokyr stresses the necessity of continual innovation to address global challenges:

  “The human race faces two of the greatest challenges that it has ever faced, and those are climate change and demographic change. But given that the only way in which we can cope with these crises is inventing ourselves out of it, I strongly urge the world to keep putting efforts and money and resources and incentives to the people who trying to invent us out of these two crises.”
  — Joel Mokyr (09:26) Timestamp: 09:18–10:02

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Notable Quotes

• Joel Mokyr on the necessity of economic history:

  “Work without economic history is like an evolutionary biologist without paleontology. And if you don't have paleontology, you just miss 99.5% of all the species that ever walk to this earth.” (00:44)

• On the darkness of pre-industrial life:

  “Lots of hard work, back breaking work, always a danger of not having enough to eat... Third of all, newborns died in infancy or before the age of one. Yes, thereabout grim.” (02:52)

• On the fragility of progress:

  “Technological progress is like a fragile and vulnerable plant whose nourishing is not only dependent on the appropriate surroundings and climate, but whose life is almost always short and can easily be arrested by relatively small external changes.” (08:04)

• On the moral neutrality of technology:

  “You make a hammer... it can be used to build a home and it can be used to bash Abel and Cain's heads in.” (08:47)

• On the necessity for innovation to solve modern problems:

  “Given that the only way in which we can cope with these crises is inventing ourselves out of it, I strongly urge the world to keep putting efforts and money and resources and incentives to the people who trying to invent us out of these two crises.” (09:26)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:20 – Nobel excitement & importance of economic history
• 02:18 – Medieval innovation & grim realities of pre-modern life
• 03:14 – Prescriptive vs. propositional knowledge
• 04:23 – Scientific revolution & the feedback loop
• 05:32 – The role of institutional openness/disruption
• 06:50 – Today's debates: coal, renewables, resistance to change
• 07:13 – Social costs of progress
• 07:51 – Mokyr on AI: optimism
• 08:04 – Fragility of technological progress
• 09:26 – The role of innovation in facing climate and demographic change

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Memorable Moments

• The striking analogy between economic history and paleontology underscores the episode’s message: understanding today’s world requires a deep look into the past.
• The optimism about AI and progress, paired with a cautionary tone about their fragility and double-edged nature, offers a nuanced perspective that resonates with contemporary concerns.

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Summary

In just ten minutes, this episode distills centuries of innovation into a story about how theory and practice, supported by open institutions and continuous vigilance, fuel a unique era of economic growth. Joel Mokyr’s Nobel insights remind listeners not to take progress for granted, and that while technology brings disruption and challenges, it remains humanity’s best hope for tackling the crises of the present and future.

Transcript

[NPR Announcer]

Npr.

[Greg Rosalski]

Greg Rosalski, author of the Planet Money Newsletter Ready to pop some champagne?

[Joel Mokyr]

Yeah.

[Planet Money Host]

Why are we popping champagne so early in the week?

[Greg Rosalski]

Again, it is the economics Nobel and it's the one time of the year where I'm allowed to talk about Francis Bacon and the scientific method and the Enlightenment and how that all led to the incredible discoveries and gadgets we have today.

[Planet Money Host]

I'm so happy for you, Darian. Yeah. So the award, this was a huge win for economic historians, among others, Joel Mokir from Northwestern University for economics, to.

[Joel Mokyr]

Work without economic history is like an evolutionary biologist without paleontology. And if you don't have paleontology, you just miss 99.5% of all the species that ever walk to this earth.

[Planet Money Host]

This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Greg Rosalski and I don't words.

[Greg Rosalski]

Today on the show we're going to answer the question of why technology keeps getting better and better. Along with Joel Mokir, Philippe Allian and Peter Howard got the economic Nobel this year for their work on understanding growth and innovation. So today we're going to focus on a part of that Joel Mokir's economic history of the European Enlightenment.

[NPR Announcer]

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[Greg Rosalski]

AI PC in medieval times there were a lot of pretty cool inventions coming out of Europe. Eyeglasses, mechanical clocks, deep ploughs for better tilling soil. But while these were handy for short sighted people or people who needed the time or for farmers, the inventions as a whole didn't lead to Europeans getting much richer.

[Planet Money Host]

Economist, historian and now Nobel laureate Joel Mokir described what this time was like on a previous episode of Planet Money. Terrible.

[Joel Mokyr]

Lots of hard work, back breaking work, always a danger of not having enough to to eat. Threat of famine looming over one's life every day. Third of all, newborns died in infancy or before the age of one. Yes, thereabout grim.

[Planet Money Host]

Yeah. Anyway, Joel Mokir he says to understand what happened next, you need to put the kinds of knowledge that we produce into two catego. One is what he calls prescriptive knowledge. That's like instructions and mechanics. You know, like I'm building this cathedral and, you know, I need to this many, you know, load bearing beams for something this tall with, you know, stone bricks this thick. I'm not writing out calculus equations, I'm not doing like, you know, big sky thinking. I'm just using the knowledge that has been passed on to me that's been discovered through trial and error. I probably don't know why this many beams are needed, you know, just that it works.

[Greg Rosalski]

Yeah. And then on the other side, he has what he calls propositional knowledge, basically laws of nature, things like mathematics and physics. And according to Joel Mokir, these two ways of learning were kept kind of separate. In the Middle Ages, you'd have your masons cutting the stones on the construction site over there and the wonks writing theories with their quill pens over there, but they weren't really talking to each other. It was basically the book. Learning wasn't meeting the street smarts.

[Planet Money Host]

Then around the 1600s, people like Francis Bacon in England started making waves in science. Bacon encouraged scientists to test their theories, to measure precisely, and to not be afraid of scientific inquiry as somehow blasphemous. By testing theories in the lab or out in the world, this brought together propositional and prescriptive knowledge.

[Greg Rosalski]

Yeah, it all kind of seems obvious now, but Joel McKeer argues that this feedback loop between theory and testing allowed for products to be refined and improved. One example is that by understanding atmospheric pressure, the steam engine could be made better, meaning more efficient motors.

[Planet Money Host]

There's another great thing about bringing propositional knowledge into practice. It's having an explanation about how the world works. It just kind of makes your ideas more persuasive. If you just tell all the doctors to start washing their hands, they might be like, why? And you're like, I don't know, it just seems like it works better. But if you actually have like in explanation, like tiny organisms and, you know, gunk called germs and bacteria, those cause diseases, your knowledge might actually run into less resistance.

[Greg Rosalski]

Okay, so theory and practice married together at last in the scientific revolution. But there is more to it. Joel Mokia emphasizes that a country's openness to change is a key ingredient for sustained economic growth. Almost by definition, the people on top are doing pretty well from the existing technologies. And so new technologies and businesses could be a threat. In the United Kingdom. The British Parliament as we know it Today started in 1800, and this gave a voice to a broader array of people. It meant that people who could benefit from, say, more railroad connections could advocate for constructing them, even if it might be disruptive to existing businesses. The not so optimistic take, though, is that there's no obvious trend that institutions get more open to growth over time. At his Nobel press conference yesterday, Joel recalled a conversation from his colleague Douglas North.

[Joel Mokyr]

There is no way that we can show that they get better over time. They do go up, they do go down. I mean, there are periods in which institutions all over the world were getting remarkably worse, particularly the interwar period in the 20th century, say. And it seems that there's some evidence to show that that's what's happening today.

[Planet Money Host]

Yeah, this is all kind of starting to remind me of debates we're having today. I'm thinking also about the Trump administration's efforts to revive the coal industry. Coal in the US Is being largely supplanted by natural gas and renewables for new capacity, largely because of improving technology in these areas. That's maybe cold comfort, though, for miners living in Kentucky or West Virginia.

[Greg Rosalski]

Yeah, the price we pay for progress is bankruptcies, layoffs, and dislocation. While the world as a whole is better off in the long run, there are costs. Like in AI. A lot of the Hollywood writers strike was about whether movies and TV shows should be allowed to use artificial intelligence. You've got a technology that speeds up part of the writing process, but vested interests like the writers union don't want that technology being used. Joel said at the Nobel press conference that that's because all technologies have side effects and can sometimes do harm.

[Planet Money Host]

That said, Joel is definitely not an AI doomer.

[Joel Mokyr]

Machines don't replace us. They move us to more interesting, more challenging work. And as AI moves us up to take these jobs over, people will move to even hired jobs.

[Greg Rosalski]

Joel McKeer thinks that this world of sustained progress that we've gotten used to is fragile. In his book Lever of Riches, he wrote, by and large, the forces opposing technological progress have been stronger than those striving for changes. He says technological progress is like a fragile and vulnerable plant whose nourishing is not only dependent on the appropriate surroundings and climate, but whose life is almost always short and can easily be arrested by relatively small external changes. So he's basically saying that this kind of economic growth can't be taken for granted. But he says how we decide to use those technologies can have very different outcomes.

[Joel Mokyr]

You make a hammer you build a technological tool, you know, it can be used to build a home and it can be used to bash Abel and Cain's heads in. That's, I think, something that's true across the board for technological change throughout the ages. Gunpowder can be used to fight wars and it can be used to build tunnels. And I think the same is true for the things that are on the horizon today, including artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and so on and so forth.

[Planet Money Host]

And Joel, he's betting we need technological advances to solve some of the biggest issues we're dealing with today.

[Joel Mokyr]

The human race faces two of the greatest challenges that it has ever faced, and those are climate change and demographic change. But given that the only way in which we can cope with these crises is inventing ourselves out of it, I strongly urge the world to keep putting efforts and money and resources and incentives to the people who trying to invent us out of these two crises.

[Greg Rosalski]

By the way, if you want to read more about the economics Nobel, you should check out Greg's newsletter, npr.org planetmoneynewsletter that's npr.org planetmoneynewsletters this episode was produced and fact checked by Julia Ritchie. Engineering was done by Patrick Murray. Kate Kincannon edits the show and the indicator is a production of npr.

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