Progressive Potentials, Regressive Realities: A Critical Political Economy Approach to Social Innovation System (A Proposal)

[I have been in Europe for almost a couple of months now to participate in the Technology Governance Programme at the Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia). I feel so honoured learning with some of the world's leading scholars who hold some of the most important ideas on development. Thus far, I have been able to attend great lectures of these brilliant minds, namely: Erik S. Reinert (the leading exponent of 'The Other Canon' reality economics); Carlota Perez (the prominent theorist of 'techno-economic paradigm shifts'); and Wolfgang Drechsler (the classical Hermeneutician student of the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer). What a truly worthwhile learning encounters with these lovely personalities indeed! Below is the proposed research I submitted to Prof. Rainer Kattel, director of the programme, on June this year which I would have wanted to work on in the coming months. In my application letter, I indicated that I wished to work on this topic under the supervision of Dr. Erik S. Reinert, an acknowledged expert on technology governance and development strategies. Photos L-R: Bonn Juego, Wolfgang Drechsler, Carlota Perez, Rainer Kattel, Erik Reinert]

Progressive Potentials, Regressive Realities:

A Critical Political Economy Approach to Social Innovation System

BONN JUEGO

Perhaps a great paradox that lies at the heart of the intensification of technological innovation depicted in the ICT revolution as the enduring techno-economic paradigm is that of technology's progressive potentials, on the one hand, and of regressive social realities, on the other. While it can be said that the intensification of the wealth-creating power of technology comes at a time when material inequality in the world is increasing, the apparent phenomenon that of technology becoming a source of perpetuation of this regressive reality is yet another contradiction. The proposed research will thus attempt to investigate this conundrum: Why, despite its progressive potentials, technology is resulting in regressive socio-economic realities? And it will run the hypothesis: That the progressive potential of technological innovation is regressively constrained by its dependence on the capitalist market.

The proposed research will explore a ‘critical political economy approach to social innovation system’ that critiques the disembedding of the market from the society, on the one hand, and that attempts to offer an alternative through a progressive project of re-embedding the market forces to the society, on the other. It will do so in three inter-related general sections. First, it will lay down propositions for ‘a critical political economy approach to social innovation system’. This critical political economy approach is seen to improvise from the established national innovation system (NIS) approaches of the Freeman-Lundvall-Nelson persuasion, with emphasis on the developmental needs of the developing countries and the indispensable role of the workers; and the Other Canon reality economics, which is mindful of the intrinsic uneven character of economic development and the need to find alternative, innovative responses relative to specific situations. Second, it will examine the contradictions of the progressive-potential-but-regressive-reality characteristic of today's techno-economic paradigm by juxtaposing the promises of technological innovation vis-à-vis its capitalist market-dependent nature under conditions of globalisation. Finally, an alternative ‘social innovation system' will be proposed, deriving the alternatives from the very structural contradictions of market-dependence (i.e., the internal logic of the capitalist market competition itself) that constrains the progressive potentials of technological innovation, and not merely out of normative or ethical prescriptions that are devoid of reality. It will explore the necessary structure conducive for real development, a development as a social relation where ‘the economic’, ‘the political’, ‘the cultural’, ‘the ecological’, ‘the ideational’, and all the other spheres of social life are organically connected to – not separate from – one another. In particular, it will examine the coherent institutional fit and synergy for development among three organically connected spheres in the society: [a] state form, or government structures and systems (the political); [b] economic policies on the relationship between financial capital and production capital, which will include an investigation of the appropriateness of the stock market as the financial system for innovation and industry (the economic); and [c ] system of ideas and values, which will include a critique on and an alternative to the defunct assumptions of neo-classical economics and the outmoded values of neo-liberalism (the cultural). This proposed alternative recognises the fact that the combined and uneven character of development that characterises the geographical landscape of contemporary global political economy would require different innovation strategies and economic policies from society to society in the world in pursuit of real development, a qualitative improvement to the lives of all.

The research hopes to immensely contribute to the inescapable link between theory construction and policy advice for real development. In terms of policy, the research will not only reveal the wounds of modernity – the widening social divisions and increasing poverty – that are just sealed, and not healed, amidst the tremendous productive capability of technological innovation; but also the exploration of the necessary synergy among political economic institutions and policies in pursuit of alternative development strategies. And in terms of theory, it hopes to contribute not only to the reconstruction of the theory of uneven development in particular, but to the broader debate, argument, and communication of innovative findings on the fields of political economy, technology governance, development economics, and evolutionary economics in general.