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Technological or Strategic Change?

In: Global Transition

Author

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  • Graeme Donald Snooks

    (Australian National University)

Abstract

Most economists today take it for granted that technological change is the key to the dynamics of human society. Innovation is usually treated as a spontaneous outcome of either structural or institutional change. Recently considerable effort has been devoted by different schools to developing ‘endogenous’ and evolutionary models to suggest that this is an automatic and irreversible process. In this chapter the orthodoxy is challenged on two grounds: first, that technological change is not the key to the dynamic process but merely a major strategic instrument; and, secondly, that it is not part of an evolutionary or automatic process but is a response to changing strategic demand. The central dynamic mechanism in human society, I will argue, is not technological change but strategic change. The belated conversion of neoclassical economists to faith in technology is, therefore, ironical.

Suggested Citation

  • Graeme Donald Snooks, 1999. "Technological or Strategic Change?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Global Transition, chapter 15, pages 265-279, Palgrave Macmillan.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-333-98479-6_15
    DOI: 10.1057/9780333984796_15
    as

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