2023-06-29 07:00:09
Book. Franck Aggeri tackled a myth: innovation. He decided to take a critical look at a concept that catches the light wonderfully, that knows very little questioning and whose ” famous [les] virtues and [les] prophets to build a better world”. An iconoclastic statement that the management professor at Mines Paris Tech-PSL carries out with rigor and pedagogy in Innovation, but what for? (Threshold).
To do this, the author invites us to turn away from the exhilarating intensity that seems to surround innovation, this “new modern religion” presented as “a set of promises and potentials”, which most often aims to “to serve the project of endless growth, exorbitant financial returns or unrealistic performance”.
A step aside which should allow us to question the way in which a culture of innovation has gradually imposed itself in our societies. The author retraces the history of this positive thought, demonstrating in particular the influence of the model of ” creative destruction “ of the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950). It also underlines the priority given to short-termism, which focuses on present gains without anticipating the negative consequences that could arise in the future.
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Its purpose is precisely to show that innovations also have their “dark sides”, shadow areas that are difficult to make visible. In fact, their negative effects are little anticipated today. Environmental and health standards are sometimes put in place in the face of technological innovations, but they have their limits.
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« Standardization lags behind innovations, it only identifies known effects”notes the questioning author: “What do we know about the potential long-term impacts of nanomaterials or biotechnology (…) ? Few things. And, when negative effects are revealed, it will probably be too late to act because such technologies will have been disseminated in a large number of everyday consumer products. »
Side effects
Different biases are at work, helping to minimize the black spots of innovations. The scale effect in particular: it is only when the innovation is widely deployed that they are revealed. “At the time of its introduction, Roundup was touted as a breakthrough in effective weed control.note M. Aggeri Now that its use has become massive, its effects on public health and biodiversity have become glaring and are the cause of social mobilizations to demand its ban. »
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