In the long genealogy of thought on progress, from Vico’s Scienza nuova to the most recent critical epistemologies of technology, there has often been a swing between two poles: on the one hand, enthusiasm for the liberating power of innovation, on the other, distrust of its collateral effects, especially in terms of inequality, social control, and systemic dependence. Power and Progress: Our Millennial Struggle for Technology and Prosperity (Il Saggiatore, 2023), written by Daron Acemoglu — awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2024 — and Simon Johnson, is placed in this theoretical tension, offering a wide-ranging narrative that intersects economics, history, political theory, and ethical-social reflection. Acemoglu and Johnson do not limit themselves to investigating the relationships between technology and economic growth. Their more ambitious thesis is that each phase of technical advancement has had divergent social outcomes depending on the power structures that accompanied it. For the authors, there is no progress in itself, but rather configurations of progress. historical developments of technology that reflect, reproduce or sometimes correct existing inequalities. Progress, therefore, is not neutral: it is a field of conflict.

The genealogy of progress as a form of power
From the first pages, Acemoglu and Johnson show how the history of technological progress has often also been a history of centralization of economic and political power. The volume opens with an analysis of medieval feudal systems, where the adoption of new agricultural techniques did not immediately lead to a more equal distribution of wealth, but rather strengthened the power of the aristocratic elites.The thesis is clear: productivity alone does not guarantee shared prosperity; It is institutions - that is, the formal and informal rules that govern the distribution of resources and opportunities - that determine who benefits from progress. This vision is directly linked to the one already developed in Why Nations Fail (2012), where the same authors distinguished between inclusive institutions (which broaden access to political and economic power) and extractive institutions (which concentrate it). In Power and Progress, this distinction is taken up and applied to the history of technology, showing how innovations can be put at the service of regressive projects if dominated by elites operating in non-democratic or non-redistributive institutional contexts.

Innovation as a social construction
Far from considering technology as an autonomous entity that evolves according to internal or deterministic logics, the authors place themselves in the wake of the theories of the social construction of technology (SCOT), developed between the 1980s and 1990s by scholars such as Trevor Pinch, Wiebe Bijker and Langdon WinnerThe underlying assumption is that technology is not a simple artifact, but a set of social practices, power relations, and political choices. Even a machine, Acemoglu and Johnson implicitly affirm, is a form of governance. Thus, the introduction of the cotton gin in the South of the United States in the nineteenth century, rather than freeing African-American slaves, increased the demand for forced labor, strengthening the slave system. Similarly, industrial mechanization did not improve workers’ conditions until the introduction of strong unions, labor laws, and welfare systems in the twentieth century.Innovation, in short, is never intrinsically emancipatory: it depends on who controls it and what purposes it is put to serve.

The contemporary case: artificial intelligence, work and inequality
One of the most incisive sections of the volume is the one dedicated to digital technologies and artificial intelligence. The authors denounce how, in the last two decades, the orientation of innovations has been predominantly lab-displacing, that is, aimed at replacing human labor rather than increasing worker productivity. This phenomenon, already documented by scholars such as Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, is analyzed here in systemic terms: the direction of progress is not the result of a neutral technical evolution, but of an implicit political choice, made by dominant companies and facilitated by weak or conniving institutions. This is where the concept of "misdirected progress" comes in: the possibility that innovation generates aggregate economic growth, but at the cost of an increase in inequality, precariousness and the concentration of power in the hands of a few actors - especially Big Tech. The example of Amazon, often cited in the volume, shows how automated logistics can increase efficiency, but also erode workers’ wages, rights and autonomy. It is the triumph of platform capitalism, where technical rationality bends to monopolistic logic.

Progress and Justice: between Rawls and Sen
Although not explicitly thematized, the entire theoretical framework of Power and Progress can be read through the prism of contemporary political philosophyIn particular, two references seem to structure the discourse: on the one hand John Rawls, with his theory of justice as fairness; on the other hand, Amartya Sen, with the capabilities approach. In the Rawlsian framework, a just society is one in which inequalities are justifiable only if they produce benefits for the less advantaged. Acemoglu and Johnson, while not formally adopting this perspective, share its spirit: progress is legitimate only if it broadens real opportunities for the majority. When, on the other hand, it strengthens the power of the already privileged, it becomes regressive. In parallel, the emphasis on the need to provide citizens with the tools to participate in progress - training, rights, representation, access to technology - recalls Sen’s philosophy, for which development is not only an increase in income, but an expansion of human capabilities. In this sense, technological innovation must be evaluated not only on the basis of GDP, but on its capacity to generate substantial freedoms.

A normative project for innovation
The main merit of Power and Progress lies not only in its historical reconstruction, but in its Regulatory proposal: the authors do not limit themselves to describing the distortions of the present, but advance a political vision of technology. The direction of innovation, they argue, can and must be governed. To do this, strong institutions, vibrant democracies, industrial policies oriented towards the common good, and an active citizenry capable of demanding an inclusive use of technology are needed. In this sense, the volume stands out from much of the traditional economic literature, which often takes on a technocratic and depoliticized tone. Acemoglu and Johnson, on the contrary, bring innovation back into the realm of politics: they ask who decides, for whom, and with what effects. Technology, they argue, is never inevitable.Every society chooses — or suffers — its own trajectory.

Criticism and Limits
However, some grey areas remain. First, the analysis tends to favor an economic-institutional approach, sometimes neglecting the cultural and symbolic dimension of power. Technologies are not only tools, but also narratives, semiotic devices, ideological constructs. Thinkers such as Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Ellul, or more recently Byung-Chul Han have shown how technology not only modifies the economy, but also shapes desires, relationships, and subjectivity. Second, the volume offers a broad catalogue of historical examples, but less in-depth discussion of the concreteness of alternatives is provided. How can we build inclusive institutions in fragile democracies? How can we break technocratic monopolies? How can we regulate the power of digital platforms without falling into censorship or technophobia? The proposals often remain generic: training, taxation, participation. But what is at stake would require a more detailed political agenda. Finally, the ecological question is not addressed with sufficient radicality. In an era in which technological progress produces unsustainable environmental impacts, the theme of the technological Anthropocene would have deserved greater space. The risk, otherwise, is that the debate on inequality remains anthropocentric, ignoring the material implications of technology on the non-human world.

Conclusion: what is at stake
Power and Progress is a wide-ranging work, capable of blending economic analysis, institutional history and political philosophy in a coherent and accessible narrative.Its value lies not only in its information density, but in its ability to ask crucial questions: Who drives progress? Who benefits from it? At what cost? In an era in which artificial intelligence, automation, and biotechnology are redefining the conditions of human action, this book represents a courageous attempt to restore to politics the task of orienting technology. Not a condemnation of progress, but a reformulation of it: from inevitable destiny to collective project. In the wake of Veblen, Polanyi, Sen, and Rawls, Acemoglu and Johnson remind us that the future is not already written in machine code, but can—and must—be negotiated. Because true progress is not that which multiplies the possibilities of power, but that which emancipates from necessity.