There's an interesting article in the millennium issue of the Economist
[1], to put this into a historical perspective. They point out that a
number of civilizations historically experienced tremendous technological
and economic advances but subsequently ground to a halt: the Roman empire,
the Islamic world up to 1200's, China up to 1400's (which until that time
was far more advanced technologically than the West). They suggest the
reasons for the boom in Western civilization in the past 250 years are the
fact the society embodied a particular set of social values (willingness to
accept change, acquisitiveness, willingness to establish trust and
reputation) and further that there were a number of competing countries in
Western Europe, so that no single government could hold back change to
preserve the status quo, making our current boom much less a historical
inevitability than a remarkable confluence of events.
[1] http://www.economist.com/editorial/freeforall/19991225mill/ml9508.html