Ask any development economist what is the most effective factor for a country to succeed economically and you are likely to be told that the silver bullet to banish economic stagnation is ‘innovation’.
The last half century saw great advances in medical science, information and communications technology and even in service industries. But is this all that matters in innovation?
We never cease to be amazed by the wonders of medical science.
Today diseases are diagnosed much earlier than ever before and treated with medicine and medical hardware that have makes the lives of millions of patients that much less painful.
Information and communications technology have created the possibility to keep in touch with anyone in any part of the world and also to tap into information that will help us make decisions based on knowledge.
In manufacturing, robots are replacing factory workers, bringing down the cost of buying everyday necessities like cars, televisions and household appliances to a fraction of the cost they were a few decades ago. Travelling by air has become more affordable thanks to low-cost airlines that have revolutionised the travel industry.
But there is a downside to many of the innovations that have arguably made our lives easier.
Many of the innovations we have experienced in our lifetime have displaced millions of workers in the EU and the western economies.
Those with limited skills lost their jobs to low-paid Far Eastern workers who readily accepted to work in an urban environment abandoning the land that their parents and grandparents tilled. In the process they gave up their values of sanity and embraced the repressive religion of accumulating money.
They gave up their values of sanity and embraced the repressive religion of accumulating money
Respected multinational companies were caught up in huge scandals that show how shallow their business ethics are. Financial services companies invented get-rich-quick complex products and services that exploited the inexperience of customers as well as regulators.
When they failed, traditional political leaders bailed them out with taxpayers’ money on the pretext that failure to do so would create a much deeper economic crisis.
Airlines struggling to give ever increasing returns to their shareholders treat their customers like dirt in an effort to squeeze every cent from their operations.
When they get caught, they issue fake apologies or promise enquiries to restore their tarnished image with the public.
But innovation in politics has been the most visible laggard in the last few decades.
Survival at all costs seems to be the most ingrained strategy of many political leaders. Admittedly politics was never a bed of roses.
I distinctly remember studying Machiavelli’s The Prince and our Italian lecturer telling us that we should not be shocked by the advice given by the Italian politician to the prince. This advice was not being given to ordinary people, but to a political master who was determined to survive through intrigue and manipulation.
The innovation that the world needs today relates to all areas of human activity. Businesses need to take in consideration the dwindling natural resources like fossil fuels that we have taken for granted for so long. We need products that can be repaired when broken and not thrown away or just recycled.
Recycling on its own will never be enough to replace the sheer waste of the ‘use and discard’ culture that we live in.
Business leaders also need to innovate through a more genuine commitment to put the interest of their clients and workers always on the top of their objectives list.
This does not mean banning robots from our factories but making sure that workers affected by the Fourth Industrial Revolution are not discarded on the human scrap heap as has so often happened in the last few decades.
Most important of all is the way our politicians behave. For too long EU, US and even Third World politics has been conducted in the interest of the political elite rather than that of common people.
Power, money and survival are the motivators of many politicians making a mockery of democracy.
There are signs that ordinary people are no longer accepting the callous attitude of their political leaders. The French electorate, for instance, has kicked out the two main political parties’ representatives from the final round of their presidential elections.
Innovation to make people’s lives better is not just sparked in science labs by committed young researchers. It is a tough soul searching exercise that needs to be conducted by our business and political leaders.
johncassarwhite@yahoo.com