Capitalism means innovation solves

As we saw earlier, there is an evolutionary logic to innovation and knowledge accumulation, and as in natural evolutionary processes there is no inevitability of success. At first blush, this might seem like a pessimistic statement. After all, human-made innovation is a faster and more efficient mechanism than natural evolution, given that technical solutions, unlike mutations in Darwinian natural evolution, do not happen by chance.41 Innovations are designed to solve the problems of the moment.42 This implies that, while the concept of progress does not make sense in biological evolution, it could in social progress, if that is interpreted as sustained knowledge cumulation and increased societal complexity.43 So why is it not the case that humanity is on a safe stride toward never- ending progress, powered by technology and knowledge accumulation? Is it that we are at risk of running out of ideas? In the end, if everything is bounded, shifts in prices and needs notwithstanding, can’t science, innovation, and ultimately human ingenuity be bounded as well? For practical purposes, the answer can safely be no. Nobel laureate economist Paul Romer has built productively on the concept of ideas as instructions for arranging atoms and for using the arrangements to meet human needs. For thousands of years, silicon dioxide provided utility mainly as sand on the beach, but now it delivers utility through the myriad goods that feature computer chips. Throughout history, humans have mixed elements together at different temperatures and pressures to see what comes out. The Bronze Age began with an idea to mix tin and copper. Later, mixing carbon and iron turned into another powerful metal: steel. Later yet, in the 1980s, mixing copper, yttrium, barium, and oxygen created a superconductor. Taking the periodic table, and applying combinatory calculus to just the first ten of its elements, Romer shows there are more possible combinations than there have been seconds since the Big Bang—and this does not even take into account that different proportions would generate different compounds. “There have been too few people on Earth,” Romer concludes, “and too little time since we showed up, for us to have tried more than a minuscule fraction of all the possibilities.”44 In a less mathematical vein, having reviewed thousands of years of human technology development, Dartnell shows that all new inventions build on previous ones. Developments in glass, for instance, made it possible to create new instruments, including telescopes and microscopes, which in turn opened new worlds for research.45 The more that is discovered, the more new opportunities are revealed.46 This is particularly the case where the scientific method is employed, and investigations are guided by hypotheses based on theories. Where there is no guiding theory, as noted by Mokyr, advances associated with new inventions tend to fizzle out, and fail to lay foundations for next steps.47 Simple tinkering and learning-by-doing soon reach a point of diminishing returns, or require a serendipitous event to make another productive leap.48 In the face of all this, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould bluntly concluded years ago that we are so far from the limits of knowledge that it is not even worth posing the question of when they will be reached. Given that the more we discover the more we open up space for new discoveries, and that the upper bound of knowledge is so far off that it is not even worth discussing, one might assume that humanity is on a sure march toward betterment. Unfortunately, that is not quite so. Up until now, we have discussed only the feasibility side, which simply implies that unbound progress is possible, not that it is inevitable. We know that extremely fast technical progress brings with it social complications. On the economic side, for example, innovation generally entails some degree of technological unemployment, creating winners and losers. With regard to economic inequality, increasing R&D spending can make wealth gaps wider, as it helps skew income distribution in favor of high-skilled labor.49 Innovation also creates cultural issues, as a changing world can undermine long- standing values at a speed that feels unsettling to some. As a consequence, feasible though it may be, technological development has not progressed linearly through history. In China, for example, innovation flourished during the Tang and Song dynasties, in cultural conditions that were conducive to it, but then stagnated in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Often across history fast innovation has been followed by a period of retrenchment or stagnation, as conflict and disorder occur.50 Calestous Juma shows in Innovation and Its Enemies that China is by no means an isolated instance. Analyzing the conditions for acceptance or resistance to innovation, across nearly six hundred years of technology history, Juma surveyed the introduction of the printing press, farm mechanization, electricity, mechanical refrigeration, recorded music, transgenic crops, transgenic animals, coffee, and even margarine. Innovations that threaten to alter cultural identities tend to generate intense social concern.51 Fear of loss can lead individuals and groups to oppose innovation, even if that means forgoing important gains. Objections may focus on material losses, but they also include intellectual and psychological dimensions. Juma’s message, that societies with great economic and political inequities are likely to experience heightened technological controversies, aligns with the idea of an “innovation treadmill” and the importance of social cohesion. The period we are currently living in is not exempt from these dynamics. On the one hand, we need a speedy technological transition to fast-track green, sustainable solutions. On the other hand, the changes will shatter entrenched beliefs, disrupt jobs, and damage some industries. Juma’s work reveals that, perhaps paradoxically, the feasibility of the green transition will rest more on the careful management of the socioeconomic dimension than on science and technology per se. The latter are the pinnacle of innovation, but a well-functioning economic system provides the foundations for it. Aside from preserving economic growth and ensuring that its benefits are spread widely, the other socioeconomic priority to underpin the green innovation vision is maintaining the fundamental principles of the Enlightenment and capitalism that made the Great Divergence possible. These include fair competition, checks and balances within government, freedom of speech, tolerance, and liberal democracy. Those eager to do battle with strawman enemies like “capitalism” and “the establishment” might wish that a regulatory hard limit could simply be imposed on emissions tomorrow. But if the process of climate mitigation is incompatible with the social and economic dimension, popular uproar will keep it from happening.52 Again, the Yellow Vest protest movement comes to mind, sparked by a 2018 tax on fuel in France—a carbon-reducing measure that then had to be reversed. This is why European Commissioner and climate czar Frans Timmermans frequently reminds people that there will either be a just green transition, or there will just be no transition, because people will oppose it. The potential limit on technological innovation, and human progress, is therefore social—echoing Fred Hirsch’s Social Limits to Growth—rather than technical. Its success will rely on the solidity of the socioeconomic infrastructure that sustains and nurtures it.