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(p. 108) Innovation and Creative Destruction
The key to increasing national prosperity is to promote good ideas and create the conditions that can lead them to be fully exploited–in existing businesses as well as new ones. Government is generally not the source of new ideas, although innovations from NASA and the military have provided frequent exceptions. Nor is government where innovation is commercially developed. But government policies do, in fact, have a major impact on the implementation of innovative ideas. The degree to which a nation makes itself productive, and thus how prosperous its citizens become, is determined in large measure by whether government adopts policies that stimulate innovation or that stifle it.
The government policy that has the greatest effect on innovation is simply whether or not the government will allow it. It’s sad but true: Government can and often does purposefully prevent innovation and the resulting improvement in productivity. Recall my hypothetical example of a society in which half the farming jobs were lost due to innovation in the use of a plow? Some nations accept and encourage such “creative destruction,” recognizing that in the long run it leads to greater productivity and wealth for its citizens. But other nations succumb to the objections of those in danger of becoming unemployed and prevent innovation that may reduce short-term employment.
Two centuries ago, more than three-quarters of our workforce actually did labor on farms. Over the succeeding decades, innovations like irrigation, fertilizer, and tractors were welcomed, and eventually large farming corporations were allowed to prosper, despite protests from family farmers and the often heart-wrenching dislocations that accompanied consolidation of farmlands. The result was the disappearance of millions of agricultural jobs and the large-scale migration of Americans from rural regions to our cities. Once there, they provided the labor that powered America’s new industrial age. And at the same time, because farming innovation and productivity were allowed to flourish, America became the leader in agriculture education, research, and industry. Innovations from these sources have enabled us to produce sufficient food to feed not only our growing population but other parts of the world as well.
Source:
Romney, Mitt. No Apology: The Case for American Greatness. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2010.
(Note: bold in original.)