ISSUES/POLICY: Curing The Inertia Of Creative Destruction

By Ashipa James

HISTORY is replete with cases of resistance to new development, advancement in technology, ideas and fresh innovations that often result into chaos, crisis and destruction due to the fear of the unknown. This behavior and tendency is a reaction to the creation of a new order and is an economic concept, which is an inertia to growth and development and is referred to as CREATIVE DESTRUCTION, sometimes known as Schumpeter’s gale,and defined by Joseph Schumpeter as the “process of industrial mutation that continuously revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one”. The concept is derived from the work of Karl Marx who defined it broadly as “the linked processes of the accumulation and annihilation of wealth under capitalism”.

Creative destruction is not a novel concept as it has historical examples as displayed in the action of the Luddites in England from 1811 – 1816. Luddism is a philosophy opposing many forms of modern technology and has been used pejoratively to refer to people showing technophobic leanings. They embarked on the destruction of labor saving machinery as a protest out of fear that new machines will take away their jobs. It is an attack of a new order by an existing, old order. Emerging from this is the neo-Luddites who exist today and oppose any new innovation in the society because they are not comfortable and are afraid of labour loss. Empirical evidences show that the society is still full of those who are antagonistic to new and fresh ideas. They permeate the whole strata of society from politics to business, public service, education, health, agriculture, et al. Despite the popular aphorism that “the only permanent thing in life is change”, the introduction of new machines and ideas is always vehemently opposed to by such conservative elements who intentionally attempt to stall such moves. When the electronics typewriter was introduced into the civil service in Nigeria, those who were used to the traditional typewriters rose up against such progressive introduction and same negative attitude greeted the introduction of computers as some of such machines were willfully damaged. Although the call for electronic voting is gaining currency, those who are used to snatching ballot boxes in order to disenfranchise voters are up in arms against such new introduction. On the issue of empowerment, old politicians surreptitiously kill every idea meant to elevate the common man as they want to remain perpetually relevant and in the driving seat of power, forgetting that NATURE has a way of ordering societies from one generation to another. In the practice of medicine, those involved in traditional health service delivery kick against every attempt to modernize the sector. For instance, traditional birth attendants still take birth delivery at home under substandard environments, which compromises safety and deny the country of invaluable data. In the business environment, sole-proprietorship is prevalent as many business owners refuse to take advantage of the benefits of modern business practices and as a result of this practice, most businesses die soon after the demise of their owners. Food security is still a mirage in Africa because we have not embraced technology to improve our farming techniques and increase yields and a case in point is China that now produces “uncontaminated garri” and better yam to the detriment of Nigeria and Ghana just as Malaysia came to take palm seedlings from Nigeria years back and now export palm oil to Nigeria. What an irony!

There is no gain-saying the fact that one can go on and on recounting several sectors where progress have been stifled due to hostile and conservative tendencies, the focus should be on suggesting ways forward to bring progress and prosperity to our people and give them better living conditions.

For Africa to experience rapid progress and development, more funds must be channeled to RESEARCH as the results and products of such research endeavors can be applied to improve our efforts in various fields of human life. How good and pleasant it would be (Psalm 133 vs 1) if we embrace new and fresh ideas to achieve greater and better results for our society. With a combination of research and technology, we can transform many sectors of our society for the collective betterment of all.

Another tool that can be employed to galvanize our society from her traditional form into a modern and civilized one and cure the inertia of creative destruction and do away with the Luddite disposition that is pervasive in our society is to institutionalize a COMPENSATION SYSTEM for the old order. It could be in form of a legal payment of an agreed percentage and a chance to participate in the new scheme of things so as not to feel threatened and excluded from unfolding events.

Although this suggestion is novel, it should be considered as one effective way to eliminate the resistance and hostility to fresh and new ideas. If the existing and old order is assured of the protection of its INTEREST in the new order, it will be more welcoming and pervious to such new innovation and ideas.