Abstract:
Capitalism’s inherent feature is “destructive creation”, said Marx. Decades later, in a similar fashion, Schumpeter stated that “Capitalist system incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure FROM WITHIN”. What are those dynamic forces causing the incessant changes in an economy? According to P. Drucker, A. Toffler, Baumol-McLennan and many others it is the productivity increases (growth) in general. P. Romer provides a more specific reply: technological change or the growth of new ideas. This paper goes deeper to the core and claims that all technological changes are produced by the intellectual labor of human mind. In other words, knowledge on production, i.e., technology or productive knowledge provides the premises and gives occasion to a dynamic and uninterrupted growth process, but technology itself is the product of mental labor. There is practically no limit to growth in the long-run since there is no limit to human creativity. The creative intellectual human labor is capable of incessantly introducing new technologies which transform (rearrange) the natural resources into so called capital and consumer goods. As long as human intellectual labor can produce new ideas, the growth will be assured and sustained, as well as, quite likely, cyclical.
Keywords:Creative intelligence; mental labor; growth; technology; technological change. (search for similar items in EconPapers) JEL-codes:C6D5D9 (search for similar items in EconPapers) New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe Date: Written 2005-08-09 Note: Type of Document - doc; pages: 41. A non-conventional analysis.