Technological inertia

“Technological inertia in economic history” (1992)

Joel Mokyr

Sources of resistance to technological progress:

1.                  Protectionism: government attitudes; fear of job losses; resistance via non-market mechanisms.

2.                  Intellectuals: hinder progress due to social-moral reasons.

3.                  Good technology is put to bad uses: technological changes are related to other phenomena (e.g. nuclear weapons used in war).\

4.                  Philosophical resistance: manipulation of nature for human benefit is wrong.

Technological inertia

Joel Mokyr, “Technological inertia in economic history”

Technological progress needs a “conducive social environment.”

But there is also social resistance to progress.

Adam Smith – the economy is not created by human beings but is a self-organising system.  Self-organising systems resist change.

Theoretical framework for Mokyr:

Public choice;

Political economy

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Evolutionary theory

Systems analysis

Self-organising systems

Examples - language, economics, technology, manners

• self-replicating way of organising information
• created by uncoordinated human action
• de-centralised
• resistant to change

Mokyr, Technological inertia in economic history, 326