Shanzhai Knockoff Culture Might Kill ‘Innovation’. Long Live Invention!

Talk of innovation has risen in recent decades. The internet age produces clashes between neoliberal big claims, big egos, and big rewards, and the tangible practice of innovation. But innovation is not the same as invention.

In 1939, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter described invention as “an act of intellectual creativity undertaken without any thought given to its possible economic import, while innovation happens when firms figure out how to craft inventions into constructive changes in their business model.”

Our culture prioritises the latter. Innovation capitalism merges two fixations: being first to “make” something (or perceived as such by a critical mass), and getting paid for that ingenuity. Both are about credit and status—not making the world better, nor even creation, despite the positive associations “innovation” has come to enjoy.

George Mason economist Tyler Cowen observes invention—which innovation passes itself off to be—is actually in decline. “Americans have this self-image that we're the great inventors, [but] we've dropped the ball in many areas. We also see a lot of social tolerance—people confuse that with technological breakthroughs. [They have] a vague sense that things are getting better."

If inventiveness is in decline, then innovation in a true sense is, too. So why are public and private funders so captivated by the latter without considering whether the former is meaningfully present?

Read the article here.