Science, Technology And Innovation In The History Of Economic Thought

Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Figures
Chapter 1: Introduction
Part I: Classical contributions
Chapter 2: Some Misconceptions Regarding Innovation (and How Reading Classical Authors Might Help Overcoming Them)
2.1 Introduction
2.2 On the Origin and Evolution of the Term “Innovation”
2.3 Smith vs Schumpeter, or Can Innovation Be Systematized?
2.4 Who Does Really Innovate?
2.5 Conclusions
References
Chapter 3: Invention, Institutional Change, and Economic Development: From Scottish Enlightenment to the IPE
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Concept of Innovation in the British Economy of the Eighteenth Century
3.3 Innovation at John Rae
3.4 Subsequent Holistic Views of Innovation and Historical Change
3.5 From Innovation as a Rational Process to the Economics of Innovation
3.6 Innovation, Institutions, and Development: The Approach of the Institutionalist Political Economy
3.7 Conclusions
References
Chapter 4: The Pre-Schumpeterian Concept of Innovation: Friedrich List and Two Pioneer Contemporaries
4.1 Preface
4.2 Friedrich List (1789–1846)
4.3 Contemporaries: Charles Babbage and J. H. von Thünen
4.4 Johann Heinrich von Thünen (1783–1850)
4.5 Innovation in von Thünen’s Thought
4.6 von Thünen and the Entrepreneur
4.7 Charles Babbage (1791–1871)
4.8 Innovation in Babbage’s Thought
4.9 Epilogue
References
Chapter 5: Technoscientific Rationality and Capitalist Accumulation. Transhumanism as Alienation in Marx’s Humanist Approach
5.1 Challenging the False Reality of Capitalism and Transhumanism
5.2 The Utilitarian Value of Technoscientific Commodities: Subsumption Efficiency and Rationality
5.3 Conclusions
References
Part II: Neoclassical Contributions and Its Alternatives
Chapter 6: Energy Efficiency, Productivity and the Jevons Paradox
6.1 Introduction
6.2 The Debate on the Limits to Growth
6.3 Jevons and Econophysics
6.4 Current Importance of the Jevons Paradox
6.5 Economic Growth and Energy Efficiency
6.6 Rebound Effect and Energy Policies
6.7 Conclusions
References
Chapter 7: Max Weber: Science, Technology and Vocation
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Science and Values
7.3 The Technoscientific Revolution
7.4 Critical Discussion
References
Chapter 8: The Age of Innovation: More Schumpeter than Keynes
8.1 Joseph A. Schumpeter (1883–1950)
8.2 The Age of Schumpeter
8.2.1 Technological Progress (Solow). New-Growth Theory. Evolutionary Economics
8.2.2 Schumpeter and Neoliberalism: The Mont Pelerin Society
8.2.3 Supply-Side Economics (and Rhetoric): Libertarian right
8.2.4 American Business in the 1980s: More Finance than Tech. Japan’s “Miracle”
8.3 Conclusion
References
Chapter 9: The Crisis of the Neoclassical Framework and the Schumpeterian Echo in the Current Paradigm of the Economic Analysis of Technological Change
9.1 Introduction
9.2 The Early Analysis of Innovation in Classical Economics and the Path to the Criticism of the Neoclassical Growth Theory
9.2.1 The Early Analysis of Innovation in Classical Economics
9.2.2 Criticisms During the “Cambridge Controversies”
9.2.3 Criticisms Over Convergence
9.3 Economic Growth Driven by Innovation and Technological Change
9.3.1 Schumpeter: From Exogenous to Endogenous Innovation
9.3.2 Schmookler and the Demand-Induced Innovation
9.4 Growth, Technology and Innovation in the Current Approach
9.4.1 The Theory of Endogenous Growth and Knowledge Generation
9.4.2 Nelson and Winter: The Evolutionary Approach to Innovation
9.4.3 Freeman and the Systemic Approach of Innovation
9.5 Conclusions
References
Part III: Some Specific Controversies Solved
Chapter 10: On the Capital Controversies as a Choice of Paradigms
10.1 Introduction
10.2 The Notion of Capital in Value Terms. From the Theory of Surplus to Factor Supply and Demand Curves
10.3 The First Phase of the CCCs (1953–1970): The Re-switching as an Anomaly for the Marginalist Approach
10.4 The Second Phase of the CCCs (1971–1976): Abandoning Lexical Homology
10.5 Final Comments
References
Chapter 11: Technology and the Labour Market: Technological Unemployment as a Historical Debate
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Starting Point
11.2.1 David Ricardo and the Machinery Question
11.2.2 What Economic Theory Says About Technological Unemployment
11.3 The Technological Unemployment to Come
11.4 Some Proposals for Dealing with It
11.5 Conclusions
References
Chapter 12: Humanity Is Facing Its Sustainability: Will Technological Progress Make the Future Unsustainable?
12.1 Introduction
12.2 A Brief Bibliographic Review
12.3 Digitalisation and Ecological Transition: Limits and Challenges to a Green Future
12.4 Conclusions
References
Chapter 13: Why Inventions Fail to Become Innovation? Some Examples from Spain and Italy
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Great Inventions That Did Not Produce Any Innovation
13.2.1 Spain and Italy in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
13.2.2 Vicenzo Tiberio and Antibiotics
13.2.3 Giovanni Caselli and the Pantelegraph
13.2.4 Alessandro Cruto and the Incandescent Light Bulb
13.3 An Example in Which the Concept of Innovation Was Not Well Understood
13.3.1 The Context
13.3.2 The Construction of the Peral Submarine
13.3.3 First Report and Opinion of the Superior Council of the Navy
13.3.4 Isaac Peral’s Defence
13.3.5 The Contribution of Echegaray. The Conceptual Debate: Discoveries and Inventions
13.3.6 The Likely Political Issue
13.3.7 On This Thread (Personal Thoughts)
13.4 Conclusion
References
Part IV: Conclusion
Chapter 14: Conclusion
Index