“Innovate or die” rhetoric directly trades off with genuine solution making – turns case

The politicians, bureaucrats, businesspeople, and academics that take part in the perpetuation of society’s obsession with innovation, all have in common that they view innovation in very positive terms—arguably, too positive—and seem to believe in an almost magical capacity of innovation and entrepreneurship to create jobs, grow the economy, solve sustainability challenges, and make life better for everyone. This overconfdence has metamorphosed into “innovationism”, a belief system or ideology that is conceptually distinct from innovation in a real or technical sense (Valaskivì 2012: 133). Innovationism has no intrinsic capacity to improve anything. Quite the opposite: It entails a strong appeal to national or regional identity (Chap. 5), combined with a constantly invoked message of competitiveness. This means that on a very subtle level, it risks turning its overpositive message into a rhetoric of fear of falling behind in the highly competitive and globalized knowledge economy. Innovation is often presented as the only means for national (or regional) survival in a hostile world. It is not uncommon for this to be summarized with the catchy but rather intimidating phrase “innovate or die” (Hasu et al. 2012: 90). In this sense, innovationism is fundamentally dishonest, as it pretends to play on feelings of optimism but breeds a worry of being left behind (Vinsel and Russell 2020: 11). Such a rhetoric of fear, especially if indirectly deployed using grandiose slogans and a dazzling surface, is arguably counterproductive both on overall societal level, in the long run, and specifcally in relation to those young minds that are necessary to encourage and stimulate to innovate.

Other destructive consequences of innovationism, and of society’s obsession with entrepreneurship and growth, are of course more plain and concrete. Among the most obvious ones—already hinted in previous chapters—are wasteful spending. The huge and centrally planned programs of “the entrepreneurial state” (Chaps. 2 and 5), have been amply criticized on theoretical and empirical grounds. Especially questionable is the seeming lack of effciency with which the programs launched under the auspices of the entrepreneurial state ideology do actually support technological development and sustainability transitions (Harford 2011; Karlson et al. 2021; Wennberg and Sandström 2022; Larsson 2022). Similarly, the entrepreneurship industry (Chap. 4) seems to be a formidable source of free money for those capable of selling a product of service to these would-be-entrepreneurs. Veblenian entrepreneurship—amounting to the “conspicuous consumption” of such products or services to maintain a particular lifestyle (Hartmann et al. 2020)—becomes really problematic when taxpayers’ money or private capital are spent to support such lifestyles, under the pretext that it is spent to support the development of the economy (Brattström 2022: 148).

But the risk of goal displacement—ultimately connected to the Hayekian “knowledge problem” (Chap. 5) and the slim chances of centrally placed bureaucrats or other decision-makers to have the competence to bet on the right horses—is far more consequential. Not only does it add to the problem of wasteful spending. In the long run, goal displacement means in all likelihood that society is robbed of great ideas and great innovations, simply because government subsidies go to those skilled at applying for them, squeezing out the really promising projects, individuals, and ventures.

The entrepreneurship industry, and the “conspicuous consumption” of Veblenian entrepreneurship, suffers from essentially the same type misconception: that innovation and entrepreneurship is all about the heureka moments—it is not (see below)—and the spectacular achievements of charismatic individuals. It therefore ultimately rests on the widespread bundle of myths, around what entrepreneurship is and how it works, that Shane (2008) and others effectively shattered (Chap. 4), and that have also been shown to strongly contribute to entrepreneurial failure. The images and cultural beliefs produced by the entrepreneurship industry may not enable prospective entrepreneurs to make better decisions and take better action—quite the opposite, they may very well hinder prospective entrepreneurs from realistic self-evaluations of their real abilities to enterprise because they simply show a false image and a false ideal to strive for.