Innovation and Its Enemies

How People Respond to Innovation

Economist Joseph Schumpeter argued that innovation transforms economies. Most analysts who apply Schumpeter’s thinking focus on how innovation generates “economic evolution” and on the role entrepreneurs play in that evolution. As Schumpeter noted, people can oppose technological innovation, sometimes stubbornly. People worry about inequality in income and about how technology is distributed. Such worries increase as people lose faith in institutions.

Innovation clashes with certain values, like the wish for stability, an ordered society and continuity. People are more likely to oppose innovations with short-term risks but long-term benefits or outcomes that challenge “cultural identities.” The way societies adapt to innovation changes as people seek more engagement in decision making.

Challenges

The world faces many different challenges, including dilemmas in security, health, sustainability as well as “life enrichment.” People increasingly apply technology to resolve longstanding problems.

This lets some developing nations skip stages other regions went through, but it also threatens to disrupt...