BUILT TO BE ECLIPSED

Tom Peters takes another look at the essence of innovation though the biography of the economist Joseph Schumpeter. (Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction, by Thomas McCraw.) For decades Schumpeter's theories were overshadowed by those of his contemporary, John Maynard Keyes.
Schumpeter, in a long life devoted to one idea, squarely and contentiously placed the entrepreneur way ahead of the pack when it comes to the engine of economic growth:

"Without innovation, no entrepreneurs; without entrepreneurial achievement, no capitalist returns and no capitalist propulsion. The atmosphere of industrial revolutions—of 'progress'—is the only one in which capitalism can survive." (Note the plural of revolution—i.e., "revolutions.")

This was radical stuff in 1911, when Schumpeter's Theory of Economic Development arrived—and remains so today.
We can work like hell to get the money supply "right" and to salvage the Mercks and GMs, but make no mistake that our future depends on the occasional but consistent provision of Googles and Genentechs and a string of future Apples and 3Ms which drive our future economic—and thence political—power.
Schumpeter also believed that technological innovation was, in the long run, the most important function of the entrepreneur, organizational innovation in governance, finance and management was comparable in significance.