According to Larry Summers, progress is access to opportunity for ever more people.

Lawrence Summers: I hope we are moving to a world in which the range of human opportunity will be expanded, and will have steadily expanded in the years ahead. And part of that is, what’s created, as people become educated; as people are free from pain; as people’s material capacity increases and they get the ability to broaden their world, whether it’s in the different clothes that they can wear, or the access to the world that telephone or TV or Internet connection can provide.

For me it’s about an ever-expanding provision of opportunity to an ever-growing number of people. And I see the kinds of opportunities that I’ve had, contrast them with the opportunities that a previous generation has had. Look ahead to the kinds of opportunities that my children will have. And I don’t think that’s a process that ever stops, but I think there’s a vast amount we can do to promote more opportunity for more people.

Recorded On: June 13,  2007