Colloquium Rationale:
Creative destruction is the process through which innovative new products are created, and older obsolete products are destroyed. In transportation, for example, cars creatively destroyed the horse and buggy, trains creatively destroyed horse-drawn wagons. Such innovations contribute to longer and richer lives, but may come at the cost of greater uncertainty in the labor market. Schumpeter claimed that the process of creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism. Although Nobel-prize-winner George Stigler has described creative destruction as “heresy,” a growing number of economists and non-economists have found the concept useful in understanding the world. While most of the emphasis will be on the implications of creative destruction for business and the economy, the discussion will sometimes involve issues related to information science, sociology, medicine, law, engineering, psychology, literature, political science, architecture, and history.
You can hear me talking about last year’s version of the Creative Destruction Colloquium (which was offered last year under a different course number and a slightly different title) in the following YouTube video:
The clip embedded above from the CNBC web site, was broadcast on CNBC on Weds., Oct. 5, 2011.
I watched several commentaries on Steve Jobs after his death was announced today (Weds., Oct. 5). I think the one above, from CNBC, was one of the best.
It highlights many important aspects of Jobs’ life. That he came back from failure, that he brought us products we didn’t know we needed until he showed us what they could do, that his products disrupted the status quo of whole industries, that at his death he owned more shares of Disney than anyone else. (Steve Jobs and Walt Disney were two of the greatest “project entrepreneurs” of all time.)
The clip above is embedded from You Tube. It was recorded on July 6, 2011 in Mammel Hall, the location of the College of Business at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). I am grateful to Charley Reed of UNO University Relations for doing a great job of shooting and editing the clip.
The hilarious (but also seriously sad) clip above is embedded from the Mon., August 15, 2011 “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”
(Note: I thank Deirdre McCloskey for letting me know about the clip.)
Source of the “murder” quote is from:
J.D. Miles, reporter. “Elderly Woman Dies From Heat After A/C Stolen.” Dallas, CBS 11 News, August 5, 2011.
(Note: this report is the source of the “murder” quote which was stated by Mrs. Grissom’s neighbor Caroline Ware.)
(Note: Another version of the report with the “murder” quote has the title: “Texas Heat Wave.” CBS 11 News, August 5, 2011.)
Another report on the incident is:
Source:
Ed Lavandera, reporter. “Woman Dies After Air Conditioner Stolen.” CNN American Morning, August 5, 2011.
In a front page article on October 20, 2010, the New York Times reported on how the Chinese government encouraged a real estate investment binge that has resulted in a growing number of empty, speculatively built ghost cities. Now the video media has picked up the story in the well-done story linked to above and cited below.
Source of image: screen capture from YouTube clip referenced below.
What motivates employees? Economists have emphasized pay as the primary incentive, while recognizing that there may be “compensating differentials” for aspects of the work that are pleasant or unpleasant.
In recent years many non-economists, such as Daniel Pink in Drive, have emphasized non-pecuniary incentives.
Joe Paterno entered the debate at age 83, after he became the first major college coach to win 400 games on November 6, 2010.
Right after the victory, he was interviewed on the field by “Heather” of ESPN. Starting at 1:33 seconds into the clip referenced below, here is the key dialogue:
Heather: “Coach Paterno, what has motivated you to get to this point?”
Paterno: “Oh geez, I don’t know—gettin’ paid.”
Source: YouTube clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQzdVeYtm5w
(Note: the clip was posted on 11/6/10 by shellymic and has the title “Joe Pa FIRST to 400 Wins!”)
Several days ago, CNN Money ran a very nice clip focusing on why Omaha’s economy has fared better than the economies of many other U.S. cities. The piece was mainly brief fluff, though pleasant, complementary fluff.
But the one message of substance was that Nebraskans, and usually Nebraska governments, work harder at not spending more than we take in.
(The reporter for the piece is CNN Money’s Poppy Harlow. Posted by CNN on May 6, 2010. Run time: 02:09.)
The Measurement Center of the Fraser Institute held a contest on the theme of what most needed to be better measured. I entered the contest, arguing that high level entrepreneurs are crucial to economic growth and human progress, and yet are not often the subject of systematic (as contrasted with anecdotal) study.
It turns out that my one minute video submission was picked as one of four “runners-up” in the contest.
The clip is the famous corporate graveyard scene from Ben Wattenberg’s 1977 “In Search of the Real America: A Challenge to the Chorus of Failure and Guilt.” The scene appears in the first of 13 episodes, the episode called “There’s No Business Like Big Business” which received the Tuck Award for the Advancement of Economic Understanding. The episode was produced and written by Austin Hoyt.
The corporate graveyard scene illustrates that under entrepreneurial capitalism, companies prosper that innovate in better serving the consumer.
Wattenberg discussed the “In Search of the Real America” program, and the graveyard scene, in his recent book Fighting Words:
(p. 307) The central point of the program was that if big American corporations didn’t compete effectively, they suffer, and many would go out of business.
The producers had the wonderful idea of a visual of a graveyard on a foggy night, with headstones made from papier-mâché and a smoke machine providing the fog. I walked through the mock cemetery in a raincoat and read off the names of corporate tombstones, which included Central Leather (the seventeenth largest company in 1917), International Mercantile Marine (the eleventh largest in 1917), as well as failures like Baldwin Locomotive Works, American Woolen, Packard Motor Car, International Match, Pierce Petroleum, Curtiss-Wright, United Verde Mining, and Consolidation Coal.2 When we showed the Central Leather tombstone, a sound effect mooed; behind International Mercantile Marine’s, a steamship horn bellowed (I love shtick).
. . .
2 The program was based on an article by James Michaels, editor of Forbes. For many years, people would come up to me in airports, recalling that one scene and complementing me on the program.
Source:
Wattenberg, Ben J. Fighting Words: A Tale of How Liberals Created Neo-Conservatism. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2008.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: I have corrected a few obvious errors involving the omission and placement of commas in the list of companies in the text of Wattenberg’s Fighting book.)
. . . , Mr. Michaels graduated from Harvard in 1943 with a bachelor’s degree in economics.
