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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT
Science, Technology and

Innovation in the History of
Economic Thought
Edited by
Estrella Trincado Aznar · Fernando López Castellano
Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic
Thought
Series Editors
Avi J. Cohen
Department of Economics
York University and University of Toronto
Toronto, ON, Canada
Peter Kriesler
School of Economics
University of New South Wales
Sydney, NSW, Australia
Jan Toporowski
Economics Department
SOAS University of London
London, UK
Maria Cristina Marcuzzo

Department of Statistical Sciences
Sapienza University of Rome
Rome, Italy
Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought publishes contributions
by leading scholars, illuminating key events, theories and individuals that
have had a lasting impact on the development of modern-day economics.
The topics covered include the development of economies, institutions and
theories.
The series aims to highlight the academic importance of the history of
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For further information on the series and to submit a proposal for con-
sideration, please contact Wyndham Hacket Pain (Economics Editor)
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The series is dedicated to the memory of former editor and distin-
guished economist Geoff Harcourt.
Estrella Trincado Aznar
Fernando López Castellano
Editors
Science, Technology
and Innovation in the
History of Economic
Thought
Editors
Estrella Trincado Aznar Fernando López Castellano
Department of Applied Economics, Department of Applied Economics
Structure and History University of Granada
Complutense University of Madrid Granada, Spain
Madrid, Spain
ISSN 2662-6578 ISSN 2662-6586 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought
ISBN 978-3-031-40138-1 ISBN 978-3-031-40139-8 (eBook)
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Contents
1 Introduction 1
Estrella Trincado Aznar and Fernando López Castellano
Part I Classical contributions 15
2 Some
Misconceptions Regarding Innovation (and How
Reading Classical Authors Might Help Overcoming Them) 17
Thomas Baumert
3 Invention,
Institutional Change, and Economic
Development: From Scottish Enlightenment to the IPE 31
4 The
Pre-Schumpeterian Concept of Innovation: Friedrich
List and Two Pioneer Contemporaries 59
Pablo José Martínez Rojo
5 Technoscientific
Rationality and Capitalist Accumulation.
Transhumanism as Alienation in Marx’s Humanist
Approach 87
Baruc Jiménez Contreras
v
vi Contents
Part II Neoclassical Contributions and Its Alternatives 107
6 Energy
Efficiency, Productivity and the Jevons Paradox109
Estrella Trincado Aznar and José María Vindel
7 Max
Weber: Science, Technology and Vocation139
Alfredo Macías Vázquez
8 The
Age of Innovation: More Schumpeter than Keynes159
Manuel Santos Redondo
9 The
Crisis of the Neoclassical Framework and the
Schumpeterian Echo in the Current Paradigm of the
Economic Analysis of Technological Change179
Antonio García Sánchez, Luis Palma Martos, and Ignacio
Martínez Fernández
Part III Some Specific Controversies Solved 205
10 On
the Capital Controversies as a Choice of Paradigms207
Ramiro E. Álvarez and Jose A. Pérez-Montiel
11 Technology
and the Labour Market: Technological
Unemployment as a Historical Debate229
Elena Gallego Abaroa
12 Humanity
Is Facing Its Sustainability: Will Technological
Progress Make the Future Unsustainable?241
Javier Arribas Cámara
13 Why
Inventions Fail to Become Innovation? Some
Examples from Spain and Italy257
Juan Francisco Galán
Contents vii
Part IV Conclusion 269
14 Conclusion271
Index281
Notes on Contributors
Ramiro E. Álvarez is Professor of Microeconomics and Argentine

Economic Policy at the National University of Moreno (UNM, Argentina).
He is also a post-doctoral fellow at the National Scientific and Technical
Research Council (CONICET, Argentina). His research focuses on the
Argentine political economy in the light of the Classical-Keynesian
Approach and integrated with Latin-American Structuralism. His works
cover the modern revival of the classical theory of value and distribution,
also known as the Surplus Approach, the history of economic thoughts,
the political economy of small-open economies, demand-led growth theo-
ries, and the Argentine political and economic history. His research has
been published in the Review of Political Economy (ROPE) and the Review
of Keynesian Economics (ROKE).
Javier Arribas Cámara currently works as a lecturer at the Universidad
Complutense of Madrid. He holds a PhD in Economics from the
Universidad Complutense. The PhD was funded by a doctoral research
fellowship granted by the Madrid City Hall. He has been a visiting lecturer
and visiting researcher in Quito (Ecuador) and Mar del Plata (Argentina).
His research has been focused on public services, the ecological and digital
transitions and their social and employment impact. He coordinated the
book in Routledge titled Institutional Change After the Great Recession:
European Growth Models at the Crossroads, and he also is the author of the
book Economía y sostenibilidad: El debate de la gestión en la historia del
pensamiento económico, with the collaboration of the public founda-
tion ICO.
ix
x NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Thomas Baumert is Professor of Applied Economics at the Universidad

Complutense of Madrid, where he obtained his PhD in Economics in
2006. He majored in Business Administration, Political Science and
Sociology, with complementary studies at the universities of Oxford,
Harvard, George Washington and the London School of Economics. He
has been a visiting researcher at the Fraunhofer-ISI in Karlsruhe (Germany)
and visiting professor at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster
(Germany). His research has been funded by the European Union, the US
Department of Homeland Security, the German Historical Institute
(Washington), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and
Competitiveness. He is a permanent member of the scientific committee
of the International Conference on Applied Economics (ICOAE) and a
trustee of the Cultural Foundation “Salvador Tuset”.
Juan Francisco Galán holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics at the
Complutense University of Madrid and in Economics at UNED (Spain).
He has more than 20 years of professional experience working in compa-
nies of the Innovation sector, such as Cagemini, Fujitsu, IBM, Indra or
Oracle, and performing business development tasks, project management
and training. Besides, he is an associate professor at the European
University of Madrid, where he teaches the subject “Technology and
Innovation” in the Master in Business Administration. He works as a
teacher for the Community of Madrid, teaching Mathematics in second-
ary education. He is carrying out studies and research on Innovation in
collaboration with the Department of Applied Economics, Structure and
History of the Complutense University of Madrid.
Elena Gallego Abaroa holds PhD in Economics and is Associate
Professor of History of Economic Thought at the Complutense University
of Madrid. Her research has been focused on two areas: labour market and
women and economics, both from a historical perspective. Among her
publications, there are Mujeres Economistas (2005), Mujeres y Economía
(2007), Universidad y Mercado de Trabajo (2008), Breve Historia del
Mercado de Trabajo (2009) and Economía en Perspectiva de Género (2020).
Antonio García Sánchez is Lecturer in Applied Economics at the
Department of Economics and Economic History (University of Seville,
Spain). He is also director of the Master’s Program in Economic
Consultancy and Applied Analysis. He holds a PhD degree in Economics
from the University of Huelva. He is a member of the research groups
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xi
“Economic Analysis and Political Economy” (University of Seville) and

“Economics and Politics of Innovation and Technical Change”
(Complutense Institute of International Studies). His main research inter-
ests are in the economics and policy of innovation (theory and micro-
econometrics); cooperation for innovation, internationalization and
regional distribution of innovation activities and the relationships between
culture, creativity and innovation.
Baruc Jiménez Contreras holds a degree in Economics from the
National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), a Master’s in
Economics from the Institute of Economic Research of the UNAM, a
Master’s in Philosophy, Science and Values at
the University of the Basque
Country (Spain) and a PdD in Economics from the Complutense
University of Madrid. He received a pre-doctoral scholarship from the
Complutense University of Madrid and has been teaching assistant of the
Complutense University and of the Institute for Social Research of the
UNAM. Scholar of the National Council of Science and Technology
(Mexico), he was awarded an honorific mention at the Mtro. Jesus Silva
Herzog prize for “Notes on ethics and morality in Marx” (2016) orga-
nized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean
and the Institute for Economic Research of the UNAM.
Fernando López Castellano holds PhD in Economics and Business and
is a professor at the University of Granada. He teaches History of Economic
Thought in the Degree in Economics and Development Cooperation,
Public Management and NGDOs at master’s level. He has participated in
various development cooperation projects in Peru, Ecuador and other
countries. He is currently a member of the Regional Development Institute
of the University of Granada and Principal Investigator of the SEJ 476
Research Group “Economic History, Institutions and Development”. His
main lines of research focus on the History of Economic Thought, Political
Economy, Institutions and Development Economics. He has published
Neoliberalism and Unequal Development, Alternatives and Transitions in
Europe, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, with Roser Manzanera
and Carmen Lizárraga, (2022) and several articles in Brazilian Journal of
Political Economy, Real World economics, or Review of Radical Political
Economics.
Alfredo Macías Vázquez is an economist and anthropologist. Professor
at the University of Leon (Spain), he is currently studying the impact of
xii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
the scientific-technical revolution on capitalist development, with a theo-

retical approach based on the theory of value. In 2017, he published The
Collapse of Technological Capitalism (in Spanish). He has obtained the
“José Luis Sampedro” Economics Prize (2011), awarded by the World
Economic Society.
Ignacio Martínez Fernández is Assistant Lecturer in Economic History
at the Department of Economics and Economic History (University of
Seville, Spain), PhD candidate in Economics in the University of Seville,
MSc in Austrian Economics (King Juan Carlos University, Spain) and
Graduate in Economics (University of Seville). He is a member of the
research group “Economic Analysis and Political Economy” (University
of Seville). His main research interests are history of economic thought,
macroeconomic analysis and competition policy.
Luis Palma Martos is a Graduate (1981) and obtained his PhD (1989)
in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Seville.
He has articulated his career on four fronts: teaching, research, manage-
ment and transfer of knowledge. He has been advisor for 30 doctoral dis-
sertations and has been a researcher or visiting lecturer in more than 20
universities over the world. He is the president of the Academic Committee
of the PhD Program in Economics, Business and Social Sciences of the
University of Seville. He has been a vice dean of International affairs at the
Faculty of Economics and Business Administration in the Universidad de
Seville (1993–2003) and director of the Department of Economics and
Economic History of the University of Seville (2008–2012). Since July
2015, he is acting as a member of the Consejo de la Competencia de
Andalucía (Agencia de la Competencia y la Regulación Económica de
Andalucía, ACREA).
Jose A. Pérez-Montiel is Professor of Economics at the University of the
Balearic Islands. He is also research director at the Angelo King Institute
for Economic and Business Studies. His research focuses on the Historical
Political Economy of growth, with special interest in the Classical-
Keynesian tradition. His works also cover topics in applied economic anal-
ysis and policy, history of economic thought, and ecological economics.
His research has been published in Applied Economic Analysis,
Metroeconomica, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Review of Political
Economy, Review of Keynesian Economics, Bulletin of Economic Research,
and Economic analysis & Policy, among others.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xiii
Pablo José Martínez Rojo is a senior consultant in Science & Innovation

Link Office (SILO). He has a Master’s in Economics and Innovation
Management at the Complutense University of Madrid and a degree in
Business Administration (UNED) and a Bachelor’s in Management in the
Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa-Enríquez, Mexico. He works in project
management (design, preparation and execution of strategy and innova-
tion projects), digital transformation, optimization of services and pro-
cesses, and reorganization and change management in the public
administration and private companies. He is a manager of R+D+i financ-
ing processes (FEDER, Next Generation EU, EDUSI, CDTI) and makes
market studies and consultation for ICT sectors (Smart cities, blockchain,
big data, cloud; Aeronautical; Health; Civil Engineering).
Manuel Santos Redondo holds PhD in Economics and is a professor at
the Complutense University of Madrid. He is a specialist in innovation
and entrepreneurship in the history of economic thought, in cultural
industries and in arts, literature and economics. He has published
Economics, Entrepreneurship and Utopia: The Economics of Jeremy Bentham
and Robert Owen (2017, with Estrella Trincado Aznar), Economía de las
industrias culturales en español (Ariel, 2011, with Manuel Montás),
Economía y Literatura (Ecobook, 2006, coordination with Luis Perdices)
and Los economistas y la empresa. Empresa y empresario en la historia del
pensamiento económico (Alianza, 1997).
Estrella Trincado Aznar obtained PhD in Economics and holds a degree
both in Economics and in Philosophy. She is a professor at the Complutense
University of Madrid (Spain). Elected member of the Executive Committee
of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET), she
received the ESHET History of Economic Analysis Award 2005 and the
ESHET Young Scholar of the Year Prize 2011. She has been Visiting
Scholar of the Department of Economics at Harvard University and visit-
ing staff at the Université Lumière Lyon 2 (Minerva). She has published
several high-impact articles and books such as Ideas in the History of
Economic Development: The Case of Peripheral Countries (2019, with
Lazzarini and Melnik); The Birth of Economic Rhetoric. Communication,
Arts and Economic Stimulus in David Hume and Adam Smith (Palgrave
Macmillan, 2019) and Economics, Entrepreneurship and Utopia: The
Economics of Jeremy Bentham and Robert Owen (2017, with Santos).
xiv Notes on Contributors
José María Vindel holds a degree both in Physics and in Industrial

Engineering, and a PhD in Physics. He has worked as Lecturer in Statistics
at the Complutense University of Madrid and as Statistics Technician in
the National Statistical Institute (INE). In addition, he has worked as a
meteorologist in the Spanish Meteorological Agency (AEMET) and as a
researcher in the Research Centre for the Energetic, Environmental and
Technological Sciences (CIEMAT). Currently, he is a head of service of
statistics in the Ministry of Labour and Social Economics (MITES). His
research interests are econophysics, solar energy and environmental issues.
He has published several articles in high-impact journals such as Renewable
and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Journal of Cleaner Production, Atmospheric
Research or Renewable Energy, amongst others.
List of Figures
Fig. 2.1 MARK I model. (Source: Muller (2001)) 23

Fig. 2.2 MARK II model. (Source: Muller (2001)) 23
Fig. 6.1 Diagram depicted by Jevons to represent the rebound effect 112
Fig. 6.2 The environmental Kuznets curve 118
Fig. 6.3 The effect of the elasticity of the demand on the rebound effect 119
Fig. 6.4 World energy consumption outlook 2015 (https://commons.
wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_Energy_Consumption_
Outlook_2015.svg, accessed on 8 July 2021) 123
Fig. 6.5 Kaya Identity: Drivers of CO2 emissions, world. Source:
Maddison Project Database, version 2018 (Torrie et al., 2018) 124
Fig. 9.1 Schematic representation of Schumpeter’s Model I. (Source:
Palma Martos, 1989, p. 101) 188
Fig. 9.2 Schematic representation of Schumpeter’s model II. (Source:
Palma Martos, 1989, p. 103) 188
Fig. 9.3 A schematic summary of Schmookler’s model. (Source: Palma
Martos, 1989, p. 98) 190
xv
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
In this volume, a link between Science, technology, and innovation in the

history of economic thought is established. There is barely any study link-
ing these three important issues within the history of economic thought.
Literature has usually studied them in an unconnected way. However, all
of them consist of a societal knowledge with a need for vocation, inven-
tiveness, and a desire for change. All of them are systems of knowledge
about the physical world—matter and business type—which try to explain
how matter and life works and how we may change it.
Landes and Duchesne questioned the explanation of the “Great
Divergence” between Europe and Asia by arguing that Europe initiated
from the twelfth century onwards a cumulative process of innovation and
invention that generated a unique form of development. McCloskey has
E. Trincado Aznar (*)

Department of Applied Economics, Structure and History,
Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: [email protected]
F. López Castellano
Department of Applied Economics, University of Granada, Granada, Spain
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2023
E. Trincado Aznar, F. López Castellano (eds.), Science, Technology
and Innovation in the History of Economic Thought, Palgrave Studies
in the History of Economic Thought,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40139-8_1
2 E. TRINCADO AZNAR AND F. LÓPEZ CASTELLANO
recently insisted that the creation of new ideas in human minds, “innova-
tionism”, has been ignored by economists. Precisely therein lies, in her
view, the success of the Netherlands and Britain: liberalization at the level
of ideas favoured a culture of a certain freedom of expression and a rather
energetic entrepreneurial economy. Besides, economists have debated on
who is to be praised or blamed for promoting innovation and change, they
argue if this change is positive or deleterious to welfare or social cohesion,
and they give advices on the type of legislation needed to promote or
hamper innovation and science. Science is one of the most important
channels of knowledge and it seems to be for the benefit of society, creat-
ing technology, new knowledge, improving education, and increasing the
quality of our lives. However, knowledge economy is a complex non-lin-
ear process of technological innovation. Besides, some countries go
towards the service economy where knowledge seems to be not a product
of scientific research, but a creative activity. This requires reconsideration
of the role of scientific research and technological innovation in both ser-
vice and industrial sectors.
Science must respond to societal needs and global challenges and in the
last analysis, it is a not intended cause of new troubles. The history of eco-
nomics can contribute to the debate about the place that science and tech-
nology must have on our present understanding of progress. At present,
the relationship between technological change and institutional develop-
ment constitutes one of the main axes of debate and urgent research top-
ics. We face climate change, hate discourse in social networks, technological
unemployment, and there is a debate on the impact artificial intelligence
or green technology have on human life and life on the planet. This vol-
ume contributes to enlarging the conversation and pointing to relevant
controversies on these issues in the past and the present. It both brings
new elements found in past thinkers and illuminates present debates with
past ideas.
Most of the contributions of history of economic thought to econom-
ics of innovation deal with the importance of the French Economist
School, based on the concept of the entrepreneur as defined by Cantillon.
For sure, the Irish economist Richard Cantillon, in Essay on the Nature of
Trade in General published in French in 1755, identified the nature of the
entrepreneur. He defined this concept as the agent who buys the means of
production at certain prices and combines them in an orderly manner to
obtain a new product which he will sell at an uncertain price. So, he was a
forerunner of the notion of innovation, which he bases on the production
1 INTRODUCTION 3
or distribution for the search for a monetary profit. In this line of thought,
other scholars stress the neglect in classical economics of Jean Baptiste
Say’s theory of the entrepreneur, which may be related to the Austrian
economics view of innovation. All these debates are not emphasized in this
volume, precisely because science and technology pretend to avoid, not
assume, uncertainty and, so, they try to provide an intellectual grasp to
link the present to the future. Besides, the scholarship on innovation based
on the French Economist School has constructed the paradigm of a
favourable view of innovation, based on individual action which goes
along with progress. This book tries to go beyond this linear perspective
and gives new food for thought on the relationship between science, tech-
nology, and innovation in the history of economics.
Actually Joseph Schumpeter, considered the “father of entrepreneur-
ship”, in the Theory of Economic Development, which first appeared in
1911, stressed that capitalism is a dynamic process of wealth creation and
change, driven by innovation, not routine. He established that the destruc-
tiveness of capitalism is inseparable from its creativity. However,
Schumpeter was not an absolute non-interventionist, such as members of
the Austrian School of Economics, and his theory of entrepreneurship
significantly differs from that of Israel Kirzner, an Austrian economist who
abundantly deals with the topic of innovation. This is particularly apparent
in Schumpeter’s argument that entrepreneurial activity is characteristic of
both market and non-market economies. Within the model of
Schumpeterian competition, Nelson and Winter add a treatment of a
“cumulative technology”, in which the expected outcome of innovation is
a function of the firm’s current level of productivity.
The relationship between innovation, changes in market structure, and
the broader evolution of an industry has been studied starting from differ-
ent histories, specific cases and empirical evidence of given sectors or firms,
characterized by routines and capabilities. Firms find patents effective only
in a limited set of innovations and in a small number of industrial sectors.
In this sense, Marshall’s analysis of economic development includes the
organizing roles of firms and industries, the connection of the representa-
tive firm to population, and the nature of firms as accumulations of knowl-
edge and capital. He studies this especially in relation to scientific
management and the reduction of the unit costs of production either
internal to a firm or external and residing in an industry or market. Internal
organization reflects the risky efforts of firms, and especially managers,
and so organization is a distinct type of productive factor. All this
mainstream view of innovation is contested by heterodox views of deci-

sion-making and path dependency, such as Marxian Economics, Feminist
Economics, Institutional Economics, and Keynesian Economics. In this
case, their focus is on the demand side of the economy, including the role
of power relations in determining economic relationships and a study of
economic systems.
However, in this volume the stress is made on the supply side of innova-
tion and economic ideas led by science and technological advances. In
particular, in the first two parts of the volume (Chaps. 2–9), the book is
organized chronologically. Thus, it shows how the concepts of techno-
logical change, invention, and innovation have changed over time and it
brings new elements of past thinkers to the forefront. Part I deals with
classical theories, and Part II with neoclassical theories and their alterna-
tives. In the third Part (Chaps. 10–13), the volume is organized by topics.
It retraces debates in the history of economics on technological change,
development, energy, or labour markets that could illuminate present
debates or that could contextualize those debates in a longer history
of ideas.
Chapter 2, “Some Misconceptions Regarding Innovation (and How
Reading Classical Authors Might Help Overcome Them)”, initiates with
a search of Thomas Baumert for the genetics of the word “innovation”,
stressesing what we can learn from “the giants on top of whose shoulders
we are standing”. The economics of innovation has deserved, throughout
the last decades, a preferential attention both by academics and by policy-
makers, derived from the broad consensus about the crucial role that
innovation plays as a driver of economic growth, especially in the most
advanced economies. As a result, we find that most economic leaders—be
it on the national, regional, or municipal scale—bet on their speeches on
innovation; that most companies define themselves as innovative and that
a significant number of advertisements use this term as catchword to pro-
mote their products throughout a great variety of sectors. Then, Baumert
goes into three “points of debate”. The first one refers to the etymology
of the word innovation and the fact that, originally, it was used with a
negative connotation (in the sense of a subversive change). A second point
deals with the question of whether the well-established concept of innova-
tion system makes sense. There is no doubt that the innovation system
approach is a fruitful one, but innovation is systematic to a lesser degree
than so far is assumed and it actually is a much more spontaneous, unpre-
dictable and, hence, non-systematical phenomenon. This would actually
1 INTRODUCTION 5
fit—with some nuances—Schumpeter’s view on innovation. And third—

closely related to the previous—Baumert deals with a question much
neglected, namely, who does really innovate in companies?
In Chap. 3, “Invention, Institutional Change and Economic
Development: From Scottish Enlightenment to the IPE”, we trace the
emergence of the concept of innovation into the Scottish Enlightenment.
In the eighteenth century, a Darwinian evolutionary concept, based on
trial and error, was available. David Hume showed that while trade devel-
ops, the extension of business professions engenders love of profit and
promotes a beneficial change in habits. However, his historical perspective
made him worried about the inevitability of the rise and fall of govern-
ments due to excessive public debt. Although change is desirable, institu-
tions and the habits of individuals must not be changed at the expense of
the past, as learning through trial and error occur naturally, based on
memory and habits. Then, in a free market economy, only reasonable
investments will survive.
In 1776, the Wealth of Nations introduced a new concept of innovation
in which people were permanently led by a universal, continual, and unin-
terrupted effort to better their own condition. As against Hume, for
whom reasonable investments survive the progressive mechanism of trial
and error, Adam Smith considers that prudence, being an extended virtue,
must be fostered by a legal maximum rate of interest. Trial and error is not
recommendable, as capital markets may lead to default, and default to
resentment. Besides, as in Hume, the rate of interest is for Smith the con-
sequence, not the cause, of investment and growth. So, the fact that the
interest rate is low is an unintended, albeit fortunate, consequence of
growth. The low rate of interest enables people to repay their debts with-
out concessions on their own freedom. The same happens with innova-
tion. For Smith, it is not the greatest individual inventiveness that increases
the amount of capital, but the skill, dexterity, and judgement with which
work is customarily done.
A last concept of innovation that emerged in the late eighteenth cen-
tury encouraged risky entrepreneurs, who operate in new production and
distribution areas. It was commenced in 1787 by Jeremy Bentham who
published his letter to Smith under the title Defence of Usury. According
to Bentham, innovation is the driving force behind development and it
must go hand in hand with credit. Bentham was not worried about
Hume´s prediction of excessive public debt as he was based on an indi-
vidualistic and atomistic vision of innovation. However, in the period of
the Scottish Enlightenment, other economists put forward a non-individ-

ualistic vision of innovation. For example, as explained in this chapter,
John Rae defended invention as a key element of technological and insti-
tutional change led by credit that transfers the possibilities and capacities
of action from the accumulators by abstinence to the creators and trans-
formers of reality. Institutions are clue in this context. They contain rights,
obligations, and ideologies and, as Elinor Ostrom will put it, they make
the market and the state the face of the same coin as limitations and skills
are intertwined. All these concepts evolve into the Institutionalist Political
Economy (IPE), which stresses the importance of governance for promot-
ing economic growth and for creating an adequate “social climate” with
the protection of property rights and the rule of law.
In Chap. 4, “The Pre-Schumpeterian Conception of Innovation:
Friedrich List and Two Pioneer Contemporaries”, Pablo José Martínez
Rojo jumps from Scottish Enlightenment to the concept of National
Innovation Systems. Adam Smith considered that division of labour leads
to an increase in productivity due to a greater worker dexterity, time sav-
ings, and mechanization. Then, specialization is the seed for a process of
accumulation of knowledge and capabilities. The analysis of Smith results
in the foundation of the theories of technological progress and R&D
innovation. But other theorists, such as Friedrich List, Charles Babbage,
and Johann Heinrich Von Thünen, contributed to the understanding of
the seminal concept of National Innovation systems. Two and a half centu-
ries have gone through, and the economy of innovation and technological
change has become one of the most relevant fields of study of economics.
Eventually, since the late 1980s of the twentieth century, much attention
has been devoted to this concept of National Innovation Systems, advo-
cated contemporarily by Freeman in the early 1960s. Actually, the concep-
tual evolution of the term follows the logical time trajectory defined by
several schools of thought: Institutional Economics, which stresses ele-
ments such as market development and firms’ incentives; Evolutionary
Economics, which studies innovation and economic development as a
path-dependent organic process of accumulation of knowledge; and the
New Growth Theory, which focuses on the need to invest in human capi-
tal to be able to generate and accumulate knowledge.
In Chap. 5, “Technoscientific Rationality and Capitalist Accumulation.
Transhumanism as Alienation in Marx’s Humanist Approach”, Baruc
Jiménez Contreras deals with the transhumanist movement, which aims to
liberate the human subject through scientific and technological
1 INTRODUCTION 7
development. From Marx’s notion of alienation, transhumanism can be

conceived as a process that exacerbates the degree of subordination carried
out by the capitalist system. For sure, this alienation is different in monop-
oly capitalism (Baran and Sweezy) or in surveillance capitalism (Zuboff),
but Marxian concept of social-ecological metabolism may connect the
global contemporary challenges of technology, nature, and work. This
chapter shows that transhumanism is based on the utilitarian ideals which
coincide with the intensification of the alienating and fetishist condition of
the system. Transhumanism has led to the emergence of the cyborg and
the aiming to transfer human consciousness into a machine as its ultimate
goal. It focuses on using technological and scientific advancements such as
artificial intelligence, robotics, cognitive science, information technology,
and biotechnology to enhance human physical and intellectual capabilities
beyond what has been naturally achieved through evolution. But transhu-
manism alludes to a Promethean vision that disregards the conditions of
domination, inequality, and economic and social subjugation of human
beings under capitalism. The movement emerged during postmodernity
and shares specific common goals with it, such as the need for “change”,
the acceptance of multiple “identities” and “bodies”, and the opposition
to a fixed and universal “human nature”. It also exhibits flexibility regard-
ing what “should” be “humans and humanity”. However, transhumanism
does not question the values of capitalist modernity or the scientific and
technological development arising from its historical specificity.
The chapter by Baruc Jiménez, then, explores this contemporary prob-
lem using the concept of alienation first introduced in Book V of The
Wealth of Nations, where Adam Smith stresses the deleterious conse-
quences of division of labour in human abilities. The humanistic fallacy
assumes that the substitution of human work by machines will leave most
humans with better jobs; however, the possibility that technologies
decrease human capacities or worsen chances of leading a good life must
be explored. Marx took up the challenge, exploring the subsumption of
labour to capital within capitalism, which conquers more and more facets
of human existence. In the same vein, the transhumanist movement tries
to modify the consumer’s decision and human experience to maximize
abilities and profit. The ultimate goal of transhumanists is the separation
between the human body and consciousness. Therefore, transhumanism
represents a contemporary vision of utilitarian values in which Hume’s
advocacy of suicide obtains a new solution: abandoning the human bodily
experience (life itself) through a set of technoscientific goods. The process
is considered an act of alienation in itself, as opposed to achieving human

freedom. This analysis by Baruc Jiménez may have further lineaments, as
theoretical efforts in economic thought have tried to assimilate human
beings to machines that act according to a universal algorithmic proce-
dure. Certain tools developed during the Second World War served as the
foundation of an economy dominated by mathematics, crystallizing into a
rational choice approach, making economics as a “Cyborg science”.
In Chap. 6, “Energy Efficiency, Productivity and the Jevons Paradox”,
a contribution with José María Vindel shows the importance of the
“Jevons paradox” to address the limits of innovation. Jevons, talking
about a non-renewable energy resource, such as coal, opened the debate
on the limits to growth. Although the emerging literature has discussed
the ongoing transition process towards the circular economy mainly from
an ecological perspective, the underlying mechanisms of economics,
industrial change, and vicious circles of technology have not been much
discussed. In 1865, William Stanley Jevons showed that scientific progress
in pursuit of an economic use of fuel and new modes of economy will par-
adoxically lead to an increase in consumption. This “Jevons paradox” is
part of a more general criticism of the author to classical economics.
According to Jevons, utility, not cost of production, is the final cause of
value, and when the cost of production declines due to resource efficiency,
the marginal utility of commodities that use the given resource declines,
increasing directly the consumption of those commodities and indirectly
the consumption of other commodities with which they are exchanged.
But, as coal is a non-renewable energy resource, it may be depleted. Then,
scientific progress and resource efficiency is not a good path to the lesser
use of resources and we cannot analyse science and technology without
taking into account human behaviour and the limits of resources. Demand
grows exponentially, while supply is limited. Obviously, Jevons underesti-
mated the relevance of coal substitutes; however, in this chapter, the
Jevons paradox is studied in the context of the debate on the limits to
Growth. Jevons’ line of thought led to new areas that imply that econom-
ics cannot be fully split from other sciences. In particular, the chapter
analyses the emergence of econophysics and the importance of the Jevons
paradox at the macroeconomic and microeconomic levels, looking at the
relationship between economic growth and energy efficiency. Finally, it
comments on the energy policies proposed to avoid the rebound effect,
with some concluding remarks on the evolution of the concept.
1 INTRODUCTION 9
In Chap. 7, “Max Weber: Science, Technology and Vocation”, Alfredo

Macías Vázquez opens the sociological view with the Max Weber theory.
In 1917, Weber wanted to respond to the question of what can make sci-
ence attractive as a vocation. Research no longer had anything to do with
the passionate dedication to solving a mystery, which required assuming
that the universe had been created by God and that knowing nature meant
knowing God better. At the beginning of the twentieth century, science
was at the service of the rationalization process that dominated Western
modernity, giving rise to specialization in autonomous disciplines in a
totally disenchanted and soulless world. Individuals were trapped in an
iron cage, and allegedly they needed to find a way out. However, Weber
considered that the rationalization process should not be avoided, but
that the question about its meaning should not be formulated in relation
to the general context of life and the value judgements of the world.
Science not only derives from some specific set of value judgements, but it
is a normative criterion in itself. The Western singularity is better explained
by its capacity to regulate greedy impulses and to integrate formal ratio-
nality in the calculation of profit. This historical outcome was reached
through ethical consensus. The Protestant ethic, particularly its Calvinist
version, served this historical function. The paradox lies in that Calvinist
asceticism, in its eagerness to separate itself from the world. Unintentionally,
it ended up giving rise to the economic system that has historically exerted
the largest control over the world. From that moment onwards, human
life was considered successful so far as rational calculation was applied,
professional specialization increased, scrupulous and tireless work general-
ized, and hedonistic enjoyment of profit given up. In parallel, this implied
the end of the charismatic authority, and the subordination of the indi-
viduals to bureaucratic organization. Thus, what started as an ethical
choice ended up as a compulsory fate. Weber then wondered how one
could passionately give oneself to science in a world dominated by social
automatisms and bureaucratic coldness without falling into minority elit-
ism, aristocratism, the defence of ultimate and supreme values. The chap-
ter by Alfedo Macías begins analysing Weber’s response to these and other
questions, and continues by assessing the feasibility of his proposition in
the contemporary context of the techno-scientific revolution. Finally, he
critically discusses Weber’s postulates in relation to Marx’s approach.
In Chap. 8, “The Age of Innovation: More Schumpeter than Keynes”,
Manuel Santos Redondo reviews the “Era of Schumpeter”. Keynes con-
sidered two factors that promote economic progress: capital accumulation
and technology. But Schumpeter was one of the economists that most
stressed the relevance of technology in the economic process. Capital
accumulation depends on profits, interest rate, and stock of capital, and
technology depends on the innovation process (that is, technological
progress and/or discovery of new resources). Schumpeter considered that
entrepreneur activity relies on profits and “social climate”, that is, the
sociological-economics-institutional aspects of the society. While Keynes
tends to reduce the explanation of unemployment to specific “malfunc-
tionings” of the labour market, Schumpeter’s notions of temporary and
cyclical technological unemployment refer to creative destruction as an
economy-wide disequilibrium process. At first, Schumpeter considered
the entrepreneur as a superior man; finally, he cuts expectations talking
about the function of the entrepreneur, which may be performed by
groups, corporations, or countries. The routinization of innovation by
corporations will make no room for reward for entrepreneurial aptitude.
According to Manuel Santos, the quarter century after World War II
was certainly “the age of Keynes”, in both economic theory and policy.
During the Great Depression, or at least in the first years, most economists
believed that the crisis will be over without large government interven-
tion, but Keynesian stabilization policy seemed to be good for the public,
the politicians, and the corporations. Then “liquidationists” began to be
in retreat. However, in the 1980s, there was the rise of Schumpeter and
his concept of the “creative destruction”. Manuel Santos discusses the
evolution of his ideas on innovation, entrepreneurship, and creative
destruction and what happened in the 1980s to make the last quarter of
the twentieth century the “Era of Schumpeter”. In macroeconomics and
in political and academic influence, Friedman and the Chicago School
were very much the winners against Keynesianism, together with Hayek.
The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union reinforced
that tendency. But together with this battle of ideas, American industry
faced competition from Japan and East Asia through technological inno-
vation. And in the 1980s, innovation economics, in several schools,
became the main issue for economist and economic policy. Their aim was
to provide an innovation policy, to build an innovation system, with an
important role for the government, which can be considered an
entrepreneur.
In Chap. 9, “The Crisis of the Neoclassical Framework and the
Schumpeterian Echo in the Current Paradigm of the Economic Analysis
of Technological Change”, Antonio García Sánchez, Luis Palma Martos,
1 INTRODUCTION 11
and Ignacio Martínez Fernández go further to explain the attention given

by the marginalism-neoclassical approach to innovation. Classical econo-
mists were the first to consider the economic impact of technological
change, with increases in productivity being its main effect and the divi-
sion of labour the facilitating element of the generation of new products.
But after this contribution, economic thought has relegated the analysis of
technological change as an exogenous element to the system, either from
the microeconomic or from macroeconomic perspective. It was not until
the second half of the twentieth century that Solow and Abramovitz found
that more than half of the measured growth was due to elements different
from the accumulation of capital and the human factor. Then, economic
analysis turned once again to technological change, the residue to which
this unexplained growth was attributed. Based on these ideas, this chapter
tries to give a “cross fertilization” of the different recent approaches on
the topic. The four main paths for the study of technological change con-
sidered by the authors are: (a) the one based on the classical legacies of
Adam Smith and Karl Marx; (b) the Schumpeterian legacy, which high-
lights the role of competitive processes and determine the possibilities of
growth and income redistribution; (c) the evolutionary models and bio-
logical suggestions based on the Marshallian legacy; and (d) some reflec-
tions on cultural elements, creativity, and innovation, which fit within the
Arrowian legacy.
In Chap. 10, “On the Capital Controversies as a Choice of Paradigms”,
Ramiro E. Álvarez and Jose A. Pérez-Montiel go into the topic of income
(and wealth) distribution that from 2014 has attracted so much attention
after Thomas Piketty’s work. As against Piketty’s methodology, who con-
trasts predictions and empirical observation, the chapter searches for for-
mal logical consistency of the conventional economic approach. In this
sense, the recent debate has not re-addressed the controversies regarding
the notion of “Capital”, which criticized the neoclassical theory of distri-
bution (1953–1976). Existing literature refers to these discussions as the
Capital Controversies or the Cambridge-Cambridge Controversies (herein-
after CCCs). Then, the chapter analyses how the CCCs arose and evolved,
as well as how it apparently came to an end in the 1960s. The authors
make use of Thomas S. Kuhn’s characterization of the structure of scien-
tific revolutions. They show that the CCCs did not lead to a Scientific
Revolution that would bring about the demise of the neoclassical hege-
mony, but that this was not due to the logical rigour of the competing
theories. The phenomena of re-switching and reverse capital deepening
were anomalies not easily assimilated into the marginalism paradigm; but
there was a (partial) assimilation that entailed the flexibilization of some of
the commitments around which the neoclassical normal research was
structured.
In Chap. 11, “Technology and Labour Market. Technological
Unemployment as a Historical Debate”, Elena Gallego makes a broad
sweep on the debates on technological unemployment. She makes classical
economists discuss with current economists to find possible future sce-
narios and search for alternative solutions. The fear of the creative destruc-
tion of technological progress begun in the sixteenth century, when Queen
Elizabeth showed concern with the English population displacement from
their jobs which might threaten her political power. From then, techno-
logical unemployment was explained in a Ricardian sense: a process of
change that is reabsorbed over time. Classical economics, and its neoclas-
sical heirs, assumed the hypothesis of price and wage flexibility that tends
to balance markets; however, in the Keynesian perspective, with rigid
prices and wages, economies did not return to the path of growth.
Technology was for all of them an exogenous variable; only Joseph
Schumpeter describes it as endogenous to the system, considering the pos-
sibility that monopolistic competition is more efficient than perfect com-
petition in driving the innovative process of the economic cycle and
producing greater job creation than job destruction, with a net posi-
tive effect.
In Chap. 12, “Humanity Is Facing Its Sustainability: Will Technological
Progress Make the Future Unsustainable?” Javier Arribas Cámara
talks from the contemporary speech about an innovation that allows us to
meet basic human needs rather than encouraging over-consumption and
waste. He considers digitalization an ally of sustainability in several ways.
But to achieve sustainability, a holistic approach is needed that considers
the interaction between the economy, the environment, and the society.
In this sense, technology can play a pivotal role in the quest for sustain-
ability; however, more than technology is needed to achieve sustainability.
The chapter discusses how advances in artificial intelligence and comput-
ing face physical and energy constraints, leading scientists to look to biol-
ogy for inspiration to design more efficient and sustainable computing
systems. Finally, it examines the growing concern over data centre energy
consumption and carbon footprint, exploring innovative solutions, such as
installing data centres in space to take advantage of low temperatures and
reduce energy consumption. Rapid accumulation of e-waste represents an
1 INTRODUCTION 13
urgent challenge in terms of sustainability, and policies and regulations at

national and international levels are needed.
Last but not least, in Chap. 13, “Why Inventions Fail to Become
Innovation? Some Examples from Spain and Italy”, Juan Francisco Galán
presents some study cases in Mediterranean countries that show that fail-
ure of the innovation process may be due to the misunderstanding and
ignorance of the concept of innovation. Actually, in Spain and Italy, there
are many examples of ingenious inventions that have not become innova-
tions and, therefore, have not contributed to economic development. This
chapter takes some of these examples as a starting point and, focusing on
the second half of the nineteenth century, reviews the factors that hin-
dered or even prevented innovation. This historical analysis can shed light
on the current debate about the best policies that should be applied to
promote innovation and, therefore, increase the productivity of our econ-
omies. In the period taken, both Spain and Italy had quite favourable
conditions for innovation: stability, a liberal legal system suitable for pro-
ductive activities, and an appropriate legislation on industrial property, in
addition to new and modern educational and research institutions which
spread scientific and technical training. However, there were three broad
instances in which inventions did not transform into innovations: in the
first one, the new results were not well received by society; in the second,
the industry did not react despite being aware of the “scientific” results;
and, finally, in a third case, inventions did produce innovation but only for
a short period of time, before being abandoned. The chapter concludes
with the case of the invention of the submarine by the Spanish scientist
Isaac Peral. Various reasons led to the failure of the invention, but one of
the most important was purely conceptual: the confusion between discov-
eries, inventions, and innovations.
PART I
Classical contributions
CHAPTER 2
Some Misconceptions Regarding Innovation

(and How Reading Classical Authors Might
Help Overcoming Them)
Thomas Baumert
2.1 Introduction
The economics of innovation has deserved throughout the last decades a
preferential attention both by academics and policymakers, derived from
the broad consensus about the crucial role that innovation plays as a driver
of economic growth, especially in the most advanced economies.1 As a
result, we find that most economic leaders—be it on the national, regional,
or municipal scale—bet on their speeches on innovation; that most com-
panies define themselves as innovators and, while the term innovation has
also penetrated the consumer base, that a significant number of
1
Classified by organizations such as the World Economic Forum as “innovation driven.”
T. Baumert (*)

Switzerland AG 2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40139-8_2
18 T. BAUMERT
advertisements use this term as catchword to promote their products

throughout a great variety of sectors.
The present chapter reunites a series of thoughts regarding innovation
that have kept popping up in my writings on this topic over the last
15 years and which I have synthesized here in three “points of debate.”
The first one refers to the etymology of the word innovation and the fact
that, originally, it was used with a negative connotation (in the sense of a
subversive change). When did the term innovation appear in Western lan-
guages and when did it shift from its originally negative meaning to the
current positive one?
A second point deals with the question of whether the well-established
concept of innovation system, makes sense. There is no doubt that the
innovation system approach is a fruitful one, which I have used myself in
many of my research papers. However, looking back at the corpus of
empirical works that show a certain stagnation in the innovative output of
nations and regions, one might wonder whether they might not result
from the fact that innovation is systematic to a lesser degree than so far
assumed and actually is a much more spontaneous, unpredictable and,
hence, non-systematic matter. This would actually fit—with some
nuances—Schumpeter’s own view on innovation.
And third—closely related to the previous—a question so far much
neglected, namely, who does really innovate in companies?
2.2 On the Origin and Evolution

of the Term “Innovation”
Etymologically, innovation derives from innovatio, innovationis, a late-

Latin word which, in turn, has its origin in novus (new).2 One of the earli-
est uses of the term is to be found in the Apology of the Roman author
Tertullian (160–220 CE.), a prolific early Christian writer from Carthage.
Tertullian uses innovation in the sense of “alteration,” with a negative
undertone, referring it to a heretic behavior. Up till then, two other
nouns—res nova and novitas—were employed in “classical” Latin alterna-
tively with a meaning similar to that of our modern innovation.
2
Curiously enough, the Proto-Germanic root (neuva) has a very a similar sound to the
Latin nova.
2 SOME MISCONCEPTIONS REGARDING INNOVATION (AND HOW READING… 19
After Tertullian, the term innovatio spread quickly. Centuries later,3 its
use might be found both in the works of Saint Augustine of Hippo
(354–430 CE), of Saint Albertus Magnus (1200–1280 CE) and of Saint
Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 CE), to highlight just three. Hence, the
former writes in De moribus ecclesiae catholicae:
[E]t illo sacrosanto lavacro inchoatur innovatio novi hominis, ut profiriendo

perficiatur in alliis citius, in alliis tardius.”
And in In psalmum VI ennaratum:
Qui etiam novus homo propter regenerationem dicitur morumque spiritual-

ium innovationem.
As an example taken out of Albertus Magnus’s works (Super

Lucam, 22,20):
Haec autem innovatio per sanguinem Christi facta est.
While in the latter’s Suma Teológica (in the chapter entitled “De Dei
Aeternitate”) the following quote is to be found:
Quod quidem manifeste apparet, si innovatio et veteratio referantur ad ipsam

mensuram. […] et sic erit innovatio in ipso aevo, sicut in tempore.
And also in his Super II Epistolam B. Pauli ad Corintios lectura we read:
Ubi notandum quod innovatio per gratiam dicitur criatura.
It becomes clear that the early use of the word innovation—nota bene
that this “early” extends to a period of nearly a millennium—which had
not been used in classical Latin, appeared mainly in texts of religious con-
tents and, hence, with a meaning very different from the current one.
From then on, the term became consolidated in all Romance languages.
The following quotes picked out of the most outstanding works of the
Renaissance might serve as examples.
3
We are aware of the huge lapse of time but did not want to expand this section with too
many examples.
20 T. BAUMERT
Thus, the father of the Italian language, Dante Aligheri writes in the
(Divina) Comedia (chant XXXII of the “Purgatorio”):
men che di rose e più che di vïole

colore aprendo, s’innovò la pianta
che la primavera la ramora di sole.
Dante also frequently employed the word in his Latin works, so in De

vulgari eloquentia libri due (2, XIII):
Licet enim in qualibet stantia rithimos innovare et eosdem reiterare ad lim-

itum […].
Similarly, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), writes in his notorious Il

Principe (Chap. 2):
Nella antiquitá e continuazione del dominio sono siente le memorie e le cagioni

delle innovazione: perché sempre una mutazione lascia lo addentellato per la
edificazione dell’altra.4
And the Spaniard Diego Saavedra Fajardo (1584–1648 CE) wrote in

Idea de un príncipe político cristiano (Emp. 21):
El príncipe prudente gobierna su estado sin innovar las costumbres. [The pru-
dent Prince governs his State without innovating its customs].
At nearly the same time, the word innovation was adopted in English
and spread through British literature. Again, a few quotes from selected
authors might serve to support our thesis.
4
Often another extract taken out of Machiavelli’s Il Principe (Chapter VI) which is often
quoted (as it serves as a piece of advice to all innovators) reads:
And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand,
more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the
introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those
who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who
may do well under the new.
However, it should be noted that—strictly speaking—the original Italian text does not
employ the word innovatore but introductore [introductor].
William Shakespeare (1564–1616 CE), in his celebrated Coriolanus

(III, 1)5—in which, by the way, reference is made to Machiavelli’s The
Prince—has his character Sicinus Velutus say, when he orders the deten-
tion of Coriolanus:
Go call the people:—

In whose name, myself
Attach thee as a traitorous innovator.
A foe to the public weal: obey, I charge thee
And follow to thine answer.
And in Henry IV (V, 1) we read:
To Face the garment of rebellion

[…]
of hurlyburly innovation.
It should be noted that in the previous examples “innovation” is used

with a negative connotation, as an equivalent of rebellion or subversion—
and it will keep this undertone, referred to in a political or sociological
context, until the end of the nineteenth century. However, according to
the Oxford English Dictionary6 approximately at the time of Shakespeare’s
death, the term started to be used in other fields of knowledge in a positive
sense. The most evident example of this might be Francis Bacon’s
(1561–1626 CE) essay “Of innovation” (included in the Essays first pub-
lished in 1625), where he states:
As the births of living creatures, at first are illshapen, so are all innovations,
which are the births of time.
And later:
Surely every medicine is an innovation; and he that will not apply new rem-
edies, must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator [..]
5
Coriolanus has the distinction of being among the few Shakespeare plays banned in a
democracy in modern times. It was briefly suppressed in France in the late 1930s because of
its use by the “fascist” element, and prohibited in Post-War Germany due to its intense
militarism.
6
Entry “innovation.”
22 T. BAUMERT
It were good, therefore, that men in their innovations would follow the
example of time itself; which indeed innovateth greatly, but quietly, by
degrees scarce to be perceived.
And also, in which might be considered the first historical novel, Walter
Scott’s Waverley (published in 1814) we read:
The others, whose time had been more actively employed, began to shew
symptoms of innovation—“the good wine did its good office”. (Chapter XI)
However, it should be noted that in German (and related languages),

the concept of innovation was described by the word Neuerung (the
equivalent of the Latin novitas, see above). In fact, Schumpeter himself
used Neuerung and Neuerer (respectively for innovation and innovator) in
his German works. It is only in 1939, when his book Business Cycles—
originally written in English—was translated into German, that Innovation
entered this language7 (see for details, Chap. 6 in this book).
2.3 Smith vs Schumpeter, or Can Innovation

Be Systematized?8
According to Schumpeter, it is the process of “creative destruction” that
governs the historical evolution of capitalism, differentiating between five
types of innovations: the introduction of a new good, the introduction of
a new method of production, the opening of a new market, the conquest
of a new source of provision of raw materials or semi-manufactured goods,
and the creation of a new organization of any industry. However, the
Schumpeterian approach is not monolithic, but presents an evolution, so
we can distinguish between two types of basic models, which are comple-
mentary to each other: the model called MARK I (Fig. 2.1) corresponds
to a vision of the innovation as a process that takes place in a competitive
environment of capitalist entrepreneurs, characterized by—economically
not yet measurable—inventions and exogenous scientific discoveries. The
innovative activity of the entrepreneur consists in identifying, among the
inventions and new available knowledge, those that entail an economic
7
Although the German translation was not published until 1961.
8
This section summarizes the broader analysis presents in Gutiérrez-Rojas and Baumert
(2018, 2019).
Fig. 2.1 MARK I model. (Source: Muller (2001))
Fig. 2.2 MARK II model. (Source: Muller (2001))
potential, implementing and transforming them into innovations. By act-

ing in this way, the old technologies become obsolete, a process that
Schumpeter calls “creative destruction” (cf. for details, Chap. 6).
This initial vision of Schumpeter is complemented by the later model
called MARK II (Fig. 2.2), which is characterized by the fact that innova-
tions are endogenous and because in it research and development is car-
ried out mainly in the R&D departments of large companies, in a process
called “creative accumulation.”
This model would imply, then, the passage of an initial conception
focused on the role of the individual entrepreneur, toward a vision that
highlights the importance of collective innovation performed within the
(large) companies.
However, it should be noted that neither of the two models were
explicitly formulated by Schumpeter, nor is the name of MARK I and
MARK II. The first model derives from Schumpeter’s (1926) book Theorie
der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung (originally published in 1912), while the
latter model reflects the vision of the innovation process contained in his
work Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942). In this second work,
24 T. BAUMERT
Schumpeter also ensures that the socialist system can be (in the best case)
as efficient as the free-market capitalist system, because—simplifying its
argument—the tendency to the concentration of capitalism leads to large
corporations becoming bureaucratic, “strangulating” any innovative and
entrepreneurial spirit that made them grow in a moment, leading them to
a situation of stagnation. In this sense, the concession made by Schumpeter
to the R&D departments of large corporations as advantageous for inno-
vation in the so-called MARK II model, must be taken cum grano salis.
Instead, it has served to give a Schumpeterian veneer to the concept of
innovation system.
The concept of “Innovation System” developed in the context of evo-
lutionary economics, reflects the process of division of labor in the field of
innovation with the corresponding participation of a broad set of interre-
lated agents and institutions, whose activities should generate synergies or
save costs, according to the central postulates exposed by Adam Smith. It
was first presented by Freeman (1987), to be followed by Nelson (1993)
and Lundvall (1992), all mentioning List (1841) as a forerunner.
In this vision, the innovation is an increasingly complex and interdisci-
plinary activity, so, a priori, it could be assumed that its development
requires the interaction of a large number of institutions, organizations,
and specialized firms. The advantages of the division of labor apply to the
concept of Innovation System in the same way described by Smith, under-
standing each single workman like an individual actor of the system (firms,
universities, public agencies, etc.):
[F]irst, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to

the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of
work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines
which facilitate and abridge labor, and enable one man to do the work of
many. (Smith, 1776, Book I)
Moreover, recognizing the difference of ‘talents’ among the actors of

an IS (remarkable among men of different professions in Smith’s words),
it is possible to glimpse the same disposition which renders that difference
useful, identifying the principle which gives occasion to the division
of labor.
Among men […] the most dissimilar geniuses are of use to one another; the
different produces of their respective talents, by the disposition to truck,
barter, and exchange, being brought, as it were, into a common stock,
where every man may purchase whatever part of the produce of other men’s
talents, he has occasion for. (Smith, Idem)
This Smithian vision of the Innovation System is fundamental to under-

standing the innovative behavior within complex structures and systems,
where not only the single actors, but also their interactions and interde-
pendencies are interested. The ‘systemic’ part of the Innovation System is
revealed because many different aspects in different parts of the economy
and society in general seemed to behave according to the needs of other
parties, as if many positive feedback loops were operating more or less
synchronized.
These are the postulates of the generally accepted theory about systems
of innovation, based on the principle of division of labor exposed by
Smith. Now, the question that arises is to what extent this theory is com-
patible with the Schumpeterian vision of innovation. In the first place, it is
necessary to observe the contradiction inherent when speaking, in a gen-
eral way, of “innovation systems.” If, according to the Austrian economist,
innovation is a spontaneous phenomenon, the result of the “creative
genius” of the MARK I model, it seems incoherent to assume that it can
be the object of, nor be the result of any systematization. It is true that
Schumpeter himself was able to consider that large companies—referring
to American companies—benefited from having their own R&D depart-
ments, while thereby converting innovation into part of their business
routine, although in a somewhat less categorical way than what is stated in
the so-called MARK II model. The “creative accumulation” would thus
accept endogenous innovation, but carried out by the companies them-
selves, not by different actors of a “system.” Thus, a confusion arose
between two concepts that continues to this day: R&D and innovation, a
disconcertment especially notable in the case of Spain and Latin America,
in which both terms are mixed in the erroneous but already deeply rooted
expression I+D+I [meaning Research & Development & Innovation].
And we must not lose sight of the fact that, according to Schumpeter
himself,
The making of the invention and the carrying out of the corresponding
innovation are, economically and sociologically, two entirely different
things. They may, and often have been, performed by the same person; but
this is merely a chance coincidence which does not affect the validity of the
distinction [...although they might, of course, interact...] invention and
26 T. BAUMERT
innovation are entirely different things, not uniquely related to each other,
and that only confusion can result from trying to analyze economic pro-
cesses in terms of the former..9
Thus, once inventions and innovations have been delimited and sepa-
rated and, consequently, the processes that lead to one and another,
namely research versus innovation, we can conclude that, while the inven-
tion can be systematized—and, therefore, it benefits from a division
between Smithian-type agents—this is not the case of innovation which,
according to Schumpeter’s postulates, would be usually spontaneous, that
is, not systematic.
From the above, a series of conclusions are derived that are worth being
analyzed more closely. First, it should be noted that the concept of an
innovation system as a regime in which different agents are divided and
specialized in different tasks—in line with Smith’s division of labor postu-
lates—interacting with each other, has now become diluted. This approach,
in any case, can be applied to the field of R&D, but not to innovation.
Consequently, it would be more appropriate to talk about (national or
regional) R&D systems. In this way, the spontaneity and creativity of
innovation is stressed instead of being “lost in the system.”
Also, that the disarticulation between the R&D, innovation, and eco-
nomic growth might lie in a wrong design of the policies of impulse to the
innovation, which is the result of a misconception of innovation—instead
of R&D—as a systemic process based on a division of labor in a Smithian
sense. As a more efficient alternative, we propose a model based on purely
Schumpeterian postulates, which will turn innovation into the center of
the productive process. For this, it is crucial to understand that although
R&D is systemic—and, therefore, it makes sense to speak of a national or
regional R&D system—innovation is, in general, a spontaneous process,
that is, fruit largely due to chance and, consequently, not systematic.
Accordingly, the use of the confusing term “innovation system” should be
discarded.
9
Schumpeter (1939, p. 84 and p. 272). This interrelation was explained some years ago
with surprising—for simple—precision by the then Finnish Prime Minister Esko Aho—
whose country was then among the leading nations in terms of technological innovation—
indicating that “research is to invest money to obtain knowledge; to innovate is to invest
knowledge to obtain money.”
2.4 Who Does Really Innovate?

It seems to have become a common belief that big business ideas come
from scientists or researchers who carry out systematized work in their
laboratories or university departments, which are then implemented by
companies, thanks to public and private cooperation between universities
and companies coordinated by governments. Yet this model might be
obsolete (Sala-i-Martín, 2016). Already the study of Bhide (2000) came
to show that 72 percent of the ideas that lead to an innovation came from
workers not dedicated to R&D; 20 percent of the ideas derive from people
(non-scientists) outside the firm; and only 8 percent of the ideas were due
to formal researchers. Logically, in sectors such as robotics, ICT, automo-
tive, or biochemistry, and so on, the relevance of R&D remains predomi-
nant. But it should not be forgotten that these represent, in most nations,
only a relatively small part of the economy. In addition, innovations—both
the product and the process—will only affect growth if they positively
induce productivity, something that is not always guaranteed with the cur-
rent definition of innovation that allows to include as such, for example,
the implementation of a new version of software by the companies.
“Radical” innovations are only rarely the result of a systematic R&D
activity. Let us take as an example the own inventions and innovations that
set in motion the industrial revolution: Henry Cort (1740–1800), who in
1783 patented the system of puddling and running in—which allowed
steel to work industrially—was marine. James Watt (1736–1819), manu-
facturer of devices for mathematical calculation, discovered the possibility
of using steam power when he was called to the University of Glasgow to
repair the model of a “latent heat” machine that Professor Joseph Black
(1728—1799) used in his classes. It is well known that Watt continued
many conversations with Black and with two other professors (John
Anderson and John Robinson), without them coming up with the solu-
tion to the key problem of a steam engine: how to maintain a cold con-
denser even when the cylinder is hot. The solution—the true beginning of
the industrial revolution—came with Watt in 1765: the only one in the
group who did not belong to the university’s teaching staff. Similarly,
another of the emblematic machines of the industrial revolution, the
mechanical weaver, was designed and brought to the market by Richard
Arkwright (1732—1792),10 a barber and wig maker and John Kay, a
10
Which Schumpeter himself cites as an example of an innovative entrepreneur
(Schumpeter, 1939, p. 272).
28 T. BAUMERT
watchmaker. Later, Edmund Cartwright, an Anglican priest and poet,

developed the first loom that could be handled entirely without human
force. And it is worth noting that even the last of the great challenges of
the textile sector—the infinite coil that did not require stopping the
machine to replace the empty bobbins of thread—was resolved two centu-
ries later by Julius Meimberg (1917—2012), who had been a famous
fighter pilot during the Second World War, awarded with the highest mili-
tary honors, and who, at the time of this invention, was the owner of a
travel agency (Holtz-Honig, 1997).
2.5 Conclusions
The present chapter has overviewed three topics of discussion regarding
innovation on which re-reading the works by classical authors (also, but
not exclusively economists!) might shed new light. First, we have dealt
with the genesis and evolution of the word innovation, which only recently
acquired the positive value that we associate nowadays with it. The second
critically discussed the innovation-system framework, arguing that innova-
tion might in fact—according to Schumpeter’s concept of the term—be
systematical to a much lower degree than commonly expected. Replacing
the “innovation system” approach by a “Research & Development” one
might represent a more efficient and realistic analytical framework. Finally,
we have questioned who actually innovates, as there are many historical
examples that show that innovation—not invention—did take place out-
side the R&D-circle. Of course, we are aware that even a high number of
examples is not enough to set a principle. But we believe that it might
justify further exploring the question. And we also believe that when dis-
cussing topics as the ones exposed here, it is fruitful not only to rely on
empirical analyses, but also to look back at “the giants on top of whose
shoulders we are standing.”
References
Bhide, A. (2000). The Origins and Evolution of New Businesses. Oxford
University Press.
Freeman, C. (1987). Technical Innovation, Diffusion, and Long Cycles of
Economic Development. In The Long – Wave Debate (pp. 295–309). Springer.
Gutiérrez-Rojas, C., & Baumert, T. (2018). Smith, Schumpeter y el estudio de los
sistemas de innovación. Economía y política, 5(1), 93–111.
Gutiérrez-Rojas, C., & Baumert, T. (2019). “Smith, Schumpeter y el estudio de los

sistemas de innovación”. Tecnología y Sociedad: una mirada multidiscipli-
naria. USC.
Holtz-Honig, W. (1997). Vater spinnt – Der Weg zum Endlosgarn. Langen-
Müller/Herbig.
List, F. (1841). Das Nationale System der politischen Ökonomie. Cotta.
Lundvall, B. A. (1992). National Systems of Innovation. Pinter.
Muller, E. (2001). Innovation Interactions Between Knowledge – Intensive Business
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Evolution, Knowledge and Territories. Springer.
Nelson, R. R. (Ed.). (1993). National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis.
Oxford University Press.
Sala-i-Martín, X. (2016). Economía en colores. Conecta.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1926). Theorie der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung. Duncker
& Humblot.
Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The Theory of Economic Development. Harvard
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Schumpeter, J. A. (1939). Business Cycles. McGraw-Hill.
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Strahan et al.
CHAPTER 3
Invention, Institutional Change,

and Economic Development: From Scottish
Enlightenment to the IPE
3.1 Introduction
Since the start of the Industrial Revolution in eighteenth century, many
economists have extolled the need for constant innovation; however, many
others have pointed out the risks of innovation. Jeremy Bentham started
this debate when he published his letter to Adam Smith in 1787 under the
title Defence of usury. For Bentham (1787), usury or the high rate of inter-
est, fosters innovation, since the innovative and the saver spirits arise from
different inclinations that do not have to come together in the same
E. Trincado Aznar (*)

Department of Applied Economics, Structure and History,
F. López Castellano
Department of Applied Economics, University of Granada, Granada, Spain

Switzerland AG 2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-40139-8_3
person. Then, innovation must go hand in hand with credit. Innovation is

the driving force behind development because “what is now an institution
was once innovation” (Stark, 1952, p. 355). For Bentham, designers ven-
ture into unknown paths by expanding the scope of consumer utility
(Trincado, 2005). Bentham praises the designer for breaking away from
routine patterns of behaviour, standing out from the crowd, and viewing
risk as a “pleasure” (Dube, 1991, p. 97).
The topic of the interest rate had already generated copious literature.
Sir Josiah Child (1689) was in favour of lowering the legal interest rate,
arguing that high rates encourage the rich to live without working and not
to invest their wealth productively. William Petty (1690) considered it
futile to try to fix interest rates by law; and many since the late seventeenth
century suggested that interest rates were determined by the supply and
demand of capital: North (1691), Barbon (1696), Massie (1750), Turgot
(1766), Hume (1964c). For example, David Hume showed that while
trade develops, the extension of business professions engenders love of
profit; and the income received by the merchant (compared to that of the
lawyer and doctor) promotes an increase in production (Hume, 1964b,
p. 326). By treating these elements in historical perspective, in Of Public
Credit, evoking Cicero he made a pessimistic prediction about the inevita-
bility of the rise and fall of governments due to excessive public debt—
although it was also optimistic about the inevitability of its resurgence.
This precludes the possibility of major political or institutional reforms.
Although change is desirable, it should not be at the expense of the past,
since institutions and the habits of individuals come into play. These are
products of human invention, not super or subhuman forces that gradu-
ally develop their effects in history (McRae, 1951). A wise magistrate
should only make gentle innovations within the old constitution and its
pillars so that learning through trial and error occurs naturally
(Rotenstreich, 1971).
As against Hume’s ideas, for whom the crisis can be an opportunity for
learning—only reasonable investments will survive the progressive mecha-
nism of trial and error—Smith considers that the error, which in capital
markets may lead to the non-payment of loans, can create resentment.
Smith advocates usury law and the setting of a legal maximum interest rate
a little above the minimum market price customarily paid by prudent men.
If the interest rate is higher, only prodigals and projectors would take loans,
and the idle creditor would take advantage of the former while the latter
loses the capital accumulated with the effort of his savings. Maintaining
3 INVENTION, INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE, AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT… 33
low interest rates—or achieving mild inflation—is for Smith an insurance

against credit default (Trincado, 2023). Smith intended to dissuade men
from taking out consumer loans, since the person who asks for subsistence
cannot ensure a repayment in the future unless he loses his freedom
(Smith, 1988, pp. 450–451). Thus, Smith speaks of a positive freedom
that can be lost in the exercise of the negative freedom, that is, without
any interference at all. However, it is not to be ignored that for Smith, the
dynamics of transformation of institutions also affects innovation and eco-
nomic and human development. For Smith, institutions sometimes seem
like restrictions on individual action; but, as was the case in the Scottish
Enlightenment, sociability is not a by-product that restricts individual
action. Rather they apply the maxim of Ortega y Gasset (1914) of “I am I
plus my circumstance; and, if I do not save it, I do not save myself.”
Personal identity is not only a habit or desire of the isolated man but also
the circumstances, the reality that men share and that enable them to
change the world. For Smith, it is not the greatest individual inventiveness
that increases the amount of capital, but the skill, dexterity, and judgment
with which work is customarily done. For this reason, he gives importance
to the role of capital—physical and human—based on abstinence (Khan,
1954, pp. 337–342).
In fact, in the period of the Scottish Enlightenment, other economists
put forward a non-individualistic vision of innovation. For example, John
Rae defended invention as a key element of technological and institutional
change, on which economic development depends (Hamouda & Omar
Lee, 2005). Rae considered that credit leads to institutional change that,
as Bentham would put it, transfers the possibilities and capacities of action
from the accumulators by abstinence to the creators and transformers of
reality. In development theory, Rae’s view is related, in its most favourable
version, to Amartya Sen’s theory of capabilities, and in its most unfavour-
able view, to Berlin’s idea of positive freedom, which he himself linked to
authoritarianism of collectivities (Cohen, 1960).
This idea of expansion of capacities has entered into the recent develop-
ments of the institutionalism approach at the hands of Institutional
Political Economy by authors such as Hodgson, Lazonick, Evans,
Rutherford, Burlamaqui, and Toye, among others, with a broader vision
of institutions and a more systematic and general explanation of institu-
tional change (Chang & Evans, 2005). As for ECE, institutions contain
rights, obligations, and ideologies, their success or failure must be evalu-
ated according to their own objectives (Lazonick, 1991). The idea of
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It lasted nearly two years. Then Maxwell, at the conclusion of some
brutal quarrel, burst another bloodvessel, and his life was despaired of.
Mary was his nurse; he would have no other. She had to sit up with him; to
attend upon him; to submit to his petty irritability, made worse by illness; to
watch him in his restless slumbers, hoping that each time he closed his eyes
would be the last.
One night—it was the very night on which this chapter opened—she sat
by his side absorbed in gloomy thought. The candle was flaring in the
socket. Everything was still. The dying man slept peacefully. With her
hands drooping upon her lap, she sat allowing her thoughts to wander; and
they wandered into the dim future, when, released from her tyrant, she was
once more a happy woman. Long did she indulge in that sweet reverie, and
when it ceased, she turned her head mechanically to look upon the sleeper.
He was wide awake: his dull eyes were fixed intently upon her; and a shiver
ran all over her body as she met that gaze!
"I am not dead yet!" he said, as if he had interpreted her thoughts.
She trembled slightly. With a sneer, he closed his eyes again.
Silently she sat by his side, communing with her own dark thoughts. He
slept again; slept soundly. She rose, and moved about the room; it did not
awaken him. She took courage:—crept down stairs, unfastened the door—
and fled.
Fled, and left her tyrant dying;—fled, and left him without a human
being to attend upon him—left him to die there like a dog; or to recover, if
it should chance so. She cared not; her only thought was flight; and, winged
with terror, she flew from the accursed home of guilt and wretchedness; and
felt her heart beat distractedly, as, a homeless, penniless wanderer, she
urged her steps along that dusty road under the quiet shining moon.
Ten days afterwards, Meredith Vyner received a long letter from his
wife, detailing the misery of her penniless condition, and imploring
pecuniary aid. The poor, old man wept bitterly over the letter, and again
reproached himself with having been the cause of her ruin. He could not
forget that he had loved her—had been happy with her. He forgave her for
not having loved one so old as himself; and wrote to her the following
reply:—
WYTTON HALL, 2nd August, 1845.
"MY DEAR WIFE,
"We have both need of forgiveness—you have mine. I know I am not

young enough to be loved by you:
Durum! sed levius fit patientia

Quidquid corrigere est nefas,
as our favourite says—not that the quotation is very good. But if you can
have patience, as I can have; if you can forget all 'incompatibilities,' and
live quietly and not unhappily with me, come back again, and all shall be
forgotten. I will do my best to make you happy, I promise that nothing of
what has passed shall ever be recurred to. You shall again be mistress of my
house and fortune.
"But I do not wish to force you even to this. If, on deliberate reflection,
you think you cannot live comfortably with me, I have given instructions to
Messrs. Barton and Hadley to remit you, wherever you may choose to
reside, eight hundred pounds a year. Upon this you can live in all comfort in
France. With every wish for your happiness,
"Believe me, my dear Wife,

"Yours affectionately,
"H. S. MEREDITH VYNER."
This letter never reached Mrs. Vyner. Believing that her application had
been treated with the silent scorn it deserved, she left the town, and toiled
her way to a neighbouring town, where a young woman, formerly one of
her maids, kept a small magazin de modes, and offered a temporary asylum.
There she endeavoured to earn a subsistence by teaching English; and at
first, success crowned her efforts; but having been recognised by an English
traveller spending a few days there, the fact of her having eloped from her
husband became bruited about, and all her pupils left her.
She was forced to quit the place, and to seek refuge and oblivion in
Paris. What bitter humiliations, and what severe trials, she had there to
undergo may be readily conceived. A mystery hangs over her fate; she was
seen once on the Boulevard du Temple, miserably dressed, and so aged by
suffering, that every trace of beauty had disappeared; but nothing has since
been heard of her.
Concerning the other persons of this tale, I have few particulars to add.
Mrs. Langley Turner has married Lord ——, and now gives as many
parties as before, only they are fearfully dull: perhaps because so much
more "select;" for it is a very serious truth, that your high people are
anything but entertaining.
Frank Forrester has seen many ups and downs; but the last time I saw
him, his cab splashed me with mud as I lounged down St. James's-street.
Rose has two chubby children, who promise to have the spirit of the
mother; they keep the nursery in a constant uproar!
Violet has one large, dark-eyed, solemn boy, who, though not a
twelvemonth old, looks at you with such thoughtful seriousness, that you
are puzzled what to say to him; and I refrained tickling him under the chin,
lest he should consider it as unseemly trifling; and as to talking to him
about his tootsy-pootsies being vezzy pitty—that never could enter the
mind even of the most ignorant nurse.
Marmaduke continues his political career with dignity and success;

Violet cheering him on, and loving him with all her large heart, so that Rose
declares, except herself and Julius, she knows of nobody so happy as these
two;—Violet disputes the exception.
And Captain Heath? The narration of his happiness is a bonne bouche I
have reserved for the last.
The whole family were at Wytton Hall, and though so happy in

themselves, frequent were their inquiries as to when the captain was to
come down—only one person never asked that question, and that person
was Blanche; the reason of her silence I leave to be guessed.
He came at last; came not to see the mild, affectionate greeting of a

sister from his much loved Blanche, but the delight, embarrassment, and
pain of one who loved and dared not avow it. He had been absent three
months. During that absence, she discovered her love. At first, she merely
felt a certain weariness; next, succeeded melancholy; next, impatience to
see him; and finally, the yearning of her heart proclaimed she loved him.
Yes: such is the imperfection of poor human nature, that it cannot reach
the circulating library standard; with our best efforts to be forlorn and
disconsolate, we will accept of society and consolation; with the strongest
idea of the virtue of constancy, a loving heart cannot but love!
Blanche was embarrassed when she saw her lover again! and he, poor
fellow! was too modest to understand her embarrassment. In vain did they
ramble about the grounds together, not a syllable did he breathe of his love.
Blanche began to be almost fretful.
One morning they were playing with Rose Blanche together, and the
little toddler having climbed upon his knee, declared she intended to
"mazzy Captain Heath some day;" upon which her mama said a leetle
pettishly: "No, my darling, Captain Heath is not a marrying man. He is to
be an old bachelor."
Captain Heath made no reply, for he could not tell her why he was
condemned to be an old bachelor.
Yet, that very afternoon, as they were strolling through the wood
together, and the conversation turned upon her child, he was moved by
some mysterious impulse, to take her hand in his, and with a faltering voice,
to say,—
"Blanche ... dearest Blanche ... forgive me for what I am now going to
say ... refuse the offer if you will, but do not be offended with me for
making it ... Your child, Blanche, is growing up ... She will soon need a
better protector than even your love ... she ... I hope you will not
misunderstand me ... I know you cannot love me ... though I have loved you
so many years ... but I am grown used to that ... I have loved you, Blanche,
for years, scarcely ever with the hope of a return, and latterly, with the
certainty, that my love was hopeless ... But when I offer myself as a
husband ... as a protector to you, and to your child ... I do that which, if it
would not pain you, I feel to be right ... I want to have a husband's authority
for devoting my life to you. I do not ask your love...!"
Her head was turned away, and her eyes were filling with tears—tears
of exquisite pain, of inexpressible delight; as these words, "I do not ask
your love," thrilled through her, she suddenly turned and looked him full in
the face.
Was it her blushing tremor, was it her undisguised tenderness which

spoke so clearly to the yearning heart of her lover? I know not. Love has a
language of its own, untranslatable by any words of ours, and that language
in its mystic, yet unequivocal voice, told Captain Heath, that he was loved.
Printed by STEWART and MURRAY, Old Bailey.

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(Download PDF) Science Technology and Innovation in The History of Economic Thought Estrella Trincado Aznar Full Chapter PDF

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(Download PDF) Science Technology and Innovation in The History of Economic Thought Estrella Trincado Aznar Full Chapter PDF

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Science, Technology and Innovation in

the History of Economic Thought

An Introduction to the History of Economic Thought in

The History of Economic Thought: A Reader; Second

Rethinking Macroeconomics; A History of Economic

Circus, Science and Technology: Dramatising Innovation

Power in Economic Thought 1st Edition Manuela Mosca

Innovation Commons: The Origin of Economic Growth Jason

The Future of HRD, Volume I: Innovation and Technology

Faith and Science in Russian Religious Thought Teresa

Science, Technology and

Maria Cristina Marcuzzo

ISSN 2662-6578 ISSN 2662-6586 (electronic)

Cover illustration: © Larisa Gherghe / 500px / gettyimages

Paper in this product is recyclable.

Part I Classical contributions 15

Part II Neoclassical Contributions and Its Alternatives 107

Part III Some Specific Controversies Solved 205

Ramiro E. Álvarez is Professor of Microeconomics and Argentine

Thomas Baumert is Professor of Applied Economics at the Universidad

“Economic Analysis and Political Economy” (University of Seville) and

the scientific-­technical revolution on capitalist development, with a theo-

Pablo José Martínez Rojo is a senior consultant in Science & Innovation

José María Vindel holds a degree both in Physics and in Industrial

Fig. 2.1 MARK I model. (Source: Muller (2001)) 23

Estrella Trincado Aznar and Fernando López Castellano

In this volume, a link between Science, technology, and innovation in the

E. Trincado Aznar (*)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

mainstream view of innovation is contested by heterodox views of deci-

fit—with some nuances—Schumpeter’s view on innovation. And third—

the Scottish Enlightenment, other economists put forward a non-individ-

development. From Marx’s notion of alienation, transhumanism can be

is considered an act of alienation in itself, as opposed to achieving human

In Chap. 7, “Max Weber: Science, Technology and Vocation”, Alfredo

and Ignacio Martínez Fernández go further to explain the attention given

urgent challenge in terms of sustainability, and policies and regulations at

Some Misconceptions Regarding Innovation

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 17

advertisements use this term as catchword to promote their products

2.2 On the Origin and Evolution

Etymologically, innovation derives from innovatio, innovationis, a late-­

[E]t illo sacrosanto lavacro inchoatur innovatio novi hominis, ut profiriendo

And in In psalmum VI ennaratum:

Qui etiam novus homo propter regenerationem dicitur morumque spiritual-

As an example taken out of Albertus Magnus’s works (Super

Haec autem innovatio per sanguinem Christi facta est.

Quod quidem manifeste apparet, si innovatio et veteratio referantur ad ipsam

And also in his Super II Epistolam B. Pauli ad Corintios lectura we read:

Ubi notandum quod innovatio per gratiam dicitur criatura.

men che di rose e più che di vïole

Dante also frequently employed the word in his Latin works, so in De

Licet enim in qualibet stantia rithimos innovare et eosdem reiterare ad lim-

Similarly, Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), writes in his notorious Il

Nella antiquitá e continuazione del dominio sono siente le memorie e le cagioni

And the Spaniard Diego Saavedra Fajardo (1584–1648 CE) wrote in

William Shakespeare (1564–1616 CE), in his celebrated Coriolanus

Go call the people:—

And in Henry IV (V, 1) we read:

Part I Classical contributions 15

Part II Neoclassical Contributions and Its Alternatives 107

Part III Some Specific Controversies Solved 205

the scientific-technical revolution on capitalist development, with a theo-

Fig. 2.1 MARK I model. (Source: Muller (2001)) 23

Etymologically, innovation derives from innovatio, innovationis, a late-