Economist Joseph A. Schumpter is known for "creative destruction", the idea that innovation is the process by which that new ideas, products, and organizations constantly replace the old ones. In a recent New York Times article, writer G. Pascal Zachary revealed a key inhibition to embracing innovation.
"Schumpeter brilliantly realized that innovation -- so often extolled as the purest expression of the human spirit -- has a dark, violent, even nasty side. Every innovator, in short, makes a declaration of war. And every successful innovation is a destroyer. To be sure, in these wars only technologies die, not the people who stand behind them. Yet people suffer nevertheless."
" . . . liberal impulses to both embrace the new and assist those swept aside by technological change ignore an enigma: that destruction itself is often liberating, unleashing waves of innovation."
The conservative inhibition is to fixate on the downside, resisting innovation so as not to be responsible for the pain -- especially to one's self. But this is a false sense of security. If the drivers are powerful, the change will come from someone else, somewhere else. Who better to innovate than one mindful of the downside and committed to its mitigation?
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