Why Does Creative Destruction No Longer Work? Proposing Actions for a Future with Reduced Employment

Abstract

This political economy essay explains why the concept of creative destruction has reduced applicability in today's world of full-consumption. It presents supply-side as well as demand-dependent explanations. It has also explored some possible implications of this for the future. The issues dealt here are wicked problems, recognizing the diversity of the actors involved. The essay is sceptical of today's neo-liberal as well as neo-Keynesian solutions. It offers possible social solutions of different forms of experiments or games. These solutions are futureless in the sense that our proposed enumerations of organizational forms is based on what can be found in the present, including cooperatives, education in arts and history, and co-creation of shared consumption. Certainly other organizational games can be conceived by imaginative social inventors and executed by innovative institutional entrepreneurs.

Keywords: political economy, supply-side, demand-side, effective demand, future, capitalism, zero-growth, consumption, technological change

JEL Classification: O31, P12, P13, P16