Innovationism and the New Public Intellectuals

Olof Hallonsten ()
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Olof Hallonsten: Lund University School of Economics and Management

A chapter in Moonshots and the New Industrial Policy, 2024, pp 77-92 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Public intellectuals were once honest and knowledgeable academics who engaged in critical debate and spoke truth to power, but seem today rather to be celebrities who make vast amounts of money from selling an oversimplified message to policymakers and the public. This chapter discusses the role of the new public intellectuals for the rise of oversimplified and misguided innovation policy, both in the wider context of the recent spread of the ideology of “innovationism” and with specific attention to the sociological mechanisms involved. With the help of a conceptual discussion and some key examples, the chapter issues some warnings of what might happen when public intellectuals give up essential virtues of academic work in favor of fame and fortune, and the role they can then come to play in the spread of “innovationism” and misdirected innovation policy agendas.

Keywords: Innovationism; Public intellectuals; Innovation policy; Academia; Vanity trap; O30; O38; I23; Y80; Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:inschp:978-3-031-49196-2_5

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-49196-2_5

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