I study the relationship between technological progress and the extractive nature of political power. A citizen and a ruler interact over time. The citizen owns a stock of capital which -- in every period -- yields some output according to a time-varying technology. The ruler can choose how much output to expropriate for her private consumption, subject to the citizen's participation constraint. The speed of technological progress is endogenous to the citizen's choice of effort. The citizen optimally exerts more effort when the ruler reduces rent extraction. As technology improves, the ruler faces a dynamic trade-off. Higher rent extraction increases her payoff today, but discourages the citizen’s effort, thereby slowing the pace of technological progress and ultimately lowering her payoff tomorrow. I show that the equilibrium of the model features an endogenous transition from a regime with high rent extraction and slow technological progress to a regime with low rent extraction and fast technological progress.