Around the corner from me here in Paris is a café called Le Progrès. I imagine its pavement tables a century ago, populated by early French socialists in hats and elaborate moustaches. These were men (yes, mostly men) who believed in progress. They met in the cafés and halls of eastern Paris to discuss uplifting the poor. They believed that humanity had been slowly rising, like an ancient lift clanking upwards, ever since 18th-century Parisian philosophers rediscovered the idea of “progress”.

Western belief in progress has been slipping steadily for decades, but is now at a nadir. Anyone who still believes that politics will uplift humanity is considered a crank. Yet the idea of progress hasn’t vanished. It has simply been privatised. Just as those early Parisian socialists believed in humanity’s progress, westerners increasingly believe in their own personal progress. They don’t think the next human generation will be better off, but they are making darned sure their own children will be.

Only four years ago, belief in progress wasn’t yet dead. Barack Obama became the world’s president with the ultimate progressive slogan: “Yes we can.” After clinching the Democratic nomination, he had said: “This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.” These now sound like words from another era, but even in 2009, heading into the United Nations’ environmental summit in Copenhagen, many still thought the world might solve global warming.