SOCIO-ECO-NOMICS of Innovation
Author: Stephen I. Ternyik/social scientist (stephen-i.ternyik@alumni.tu-berlin.de)
Timescales and Winds of Change
Change is considered a cybernetic force in living systems, occurring in cyclical, spiral and helical regularity, performing in retro-and progressive intervals, waves or circles. Moderns take generally very little time to reflect about how change took place in their lifetimes and their memory usually points to technical improvement, without perceiving the economic and cognitive aspects of these modifications: visible products=results are seen, but not invisible processes. The permanent metamorphosis of the human living condition, however, is what really matters in our finite lives ;unfortunately, moderns have lost contact to the cultural and natural origins of human change as all technology is essentially culture, i.e. human culture can best be perceived, observed and discovered by its tech-know-logical level. Indeed, change is timeless and any timescale mainly refers to human history as recorded, invented or fabricated. All measurements of time (and change) are bound to the operational measuring scale or device, the Bible prefers generational units, today we apply digital units. Whatever construct of time we may use, might it be arithmetic (local clock readings), geometric (world flowing time) or cosmological (special relativity time), we are unable to look back in real time and human life time is more than a linear series of moments. The regular force that seems to drive all of this change is commonly called innovation, something like a realization of ideas to serve unmet needs, i.e. every innovation is emerging to fulfill human needs. However, it is even difficult to date change exactly, e.g. from the evolution of scripture over the Gutenberg-press to internet-working. Is there really nothing new under the sun as Ecclesiastes claims or do we fill always old wine into new bottles? Are we acting like Sisyphus? Many inventions occurred at the same time and in many places, some inventions are claimed by different collectives and individuals, other inventions were never realized or could not be realized, but innovations are different: the real conversion of knowledge into value (and utility) is a learning process to fulfill human needs, innovation happens when learning converts knowledge into value, utility and wealth; it is process-learning for results/products. From the viewpoint of human action, knowledge is characterized by the selection of behavioral patterns/formulae while learning is the modification of behavioral patterns/formulae .Consequently, learning is a higher form of knowledge and the pure discovery of a fact does not automatically alter the facts, i.e. this is also the reason why most basic socio-economic injustices cannot not be rectified by the cause of innovative change; generally, just the contrary effect appears, leading to a reinforcement of existing trends, e.g. the new fulfillment of needs causes unknown pains. Furthermore, we do not see an overarching theory of innovation, but very different timescales of innovation in quantitative and qualitative terms. The best example is the recent new economy illusion of internet & telecom, resembling Schumpeterian creative destruction or a Kondratiev wave that pushes the world economy to a global financial collapse, eventually leading to systemic monetary innovation. As we already pointed out: the world is full of innovations (‘sleeping and awake’) and there is nothing new under the sun, concerning the cyclical, spiral and helical regularity of human innovative action. In fact, it is healthy to accept this paradox and not to wait for business plans, five year plans or other wishlists; short-term gain always implies long-term pain, just keep in mind that today an average share is