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Collaboration, Adaptation & Risk: Innovate Or Die
Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,
Collaboration, innovation and risk are all intrinsic to adaptation. Without adaptation, every system eventually perishes once conditions change.
One feature of capitalism that is rarely discussed is the premium placed on cooperation and collaboration. The Darwinian aspect of competition is widely accepted (and rued) as capitalism’s dominant force, but cooperation and collaboration are just as intrinsic to capitalism as competition. Subcontractors must cooperate to assemble a product, suppliers must cooperate to deliver the various components, distributors must cooperate to get the products to retail outlets, employees and managers must cooperate to reach the goals of the organization, and local governments and communities must cooperate with enterprises to maintain the local economy.'
Darwin’s understanding of natural selection is often misapplied. In its basic form, natural selection simply means that the world is constantly changing, and organisms must adapt or they will expire. The same is true of individuals, enterprises, governments, cultures and economies. Darwin wrote:"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, or the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptable to change."
Ideas, techniques and processes which are better and more productive than previous versions will spread quickly; those who refuse to adapt them will be overtaken by those who do. These new ideas, techniques and processes trigger changes in society and the economy that are often difficult to predict.
This creates a dilemma: we want more prosperity and wider opportunities for self-cultivation (personal fulfillment), yet we don’t want our security and culture to be disrupted. But we cannot have it both ways. Those who attempt to preserve their power over the social order while reaping the gains of free markets find their power dissolving before their eyes as unintended consequences of technological and social innovations disrupt their mechanisms of control.
Yet rejecting free markets also fails to preserve the power structure, for a citizenry denied the opportunity to prosper chafes under a Status Quo that enriches Elites and relegates the masses to stagnation and poverty.
The great irony of free-market capitalism is that the only way to establish an enduring security is to embrace innovation and adaptation, the very processes that generate short-term insecurity. Attempting to guarantee security leads to risk being distributed to others, or concentrated within the system itself. When the accumulated risk manifests, the system collapses.
The core dynamic of free markets is the causal links between the free movement of labor and capital, transparent markets, innovation, risk and adaptation. Every attempt to eliminate risk, hinder the flow of capital, rig markets and limit disruptive adaptation leads to stagnation and eventual collapse as the inefficient, wasteful and corrupt elements of the economy absorb all the oxygen, starving the system of investment, innovation and initiative.
We can follow Darwin’s observation that "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, or the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptable to change,” with a corollary: Eliminating risk eliminates the possibility of successful adaptation.
We can go even further and suggest adaptive advantages are correlated to innovation and risk: the lower the risk, the lower the odds of innovation and the lower the advantages gained.
Adaptation--what we call innovation--is thus a dynamic series of trade-offs between many low-risk experiments that yield marginal losses and gains and occasional high-risk experiments that raise the stakes but which may yield game-changing innovations.
There are lessons here for jobseekers and entrepreneurs alike: playing it safe limits potential losses but it also limits potential gains. Collaboration, innovation and risk are all intrinsic to adaptation. Without adaptation, every system eventually perishes once conditions change.
This is heart of the phrase innovate or die.
Gordon T. Long and I discuss innovation and collaboration in this 32-minute video Learning To Innovate:
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free-market capitalism? has this bozo been living in a cave with sasquatch?
The correct answer is B) DIE
Buh Bitcoin folks or die!
https://btc-e.com
Innovate and watch the government agencies line up to tell you it's against a zillion different arcane regulations. Here are your fines and cease-and-desist orders. And, by the way, your bank doesn't want your account any more.
Lie, cheat and steal, no problemo, though, as long as you LOOK like you're playing withing the proscribed rules and know the right people.
Nobody's FORGOTTEN how to run a free market economy, it's just been decided by our government we're not going to have one any more. It's only fair. And, of course, it's for the children. Central (corrupt) planning. It's what's for dinner.
Can I get some freedom fries with my central planning meal?
These days innovation tends to mean re-arrange the deck chairs and slap on a new coat of paint. Real innovation tends to be risky and success is not guaranteed and with everybody being castrated and then turned out to pasture we're not going to see much of it. There are many promising things out there but it's considered too much work and too much time for payback in our screwed up little world. Better to toss money at the markets to "get rich quick" than to think about the future...sigh....
Quisling was right after all.
If 'adaptation' means mandatory smart phone usage, i choose death.
The government does not run the markets. The big businesses that own the government tell the governments how to run the markets.
Having worked at a for profit private hospital, public and non profit hospital, I've come to the conclusion the for profit hospital actually had the soundest business model. However, due to government subsidies to the other 2, it died due to cost overruns.
It's plain to me why socialistic societies tend not to be innovative. They reap the rewards on the innovations of others.
Miffed
Also known as stealing. Yes, exactly.
Unfortunately there is no example of a society moving from liberal to conservative without a major upheaval. War, revolution, some sort of collapse. Absent that, all societies move from more conservative to more liberal over time.
Why would bizness waste money on innovation when you can use it to buy back moar of your own stawks ?
The ROI on political 'contributions" is much higher, silly.
"Innovate Or Die"
~ This fellow is talking about something that went on in the past America, not in the present Amerika! We have had our asses regulated right out of innovation.
Of course if you have a strong lobby greasing the right palms in the cesspool, then some innovation gets through from time to time.
Nothing kills off new ideas like a fucking big gubmint!
Nothing kills off new ideas like a fucking big gubmint! that's doing the bidding of some parasite who has already "made it" off the old ideas.
There, fixed it for ya'.
Darwin was a gimp from a family of high inbreeding. Can banksters fly yet? Didn't think so. Better adapt, fuckers. Time is running out.
Republicans Reject Bill Amendment to let Veterans Affairs Doctors Recommend Cannabis
I always thought the operative term was "creative destruction."
Detroit is the next Silicon Valley. The news told me today.
Unfortunately bankers and financiers do not know how to actually do anything really useful. I bet their bodies will make good fertilizer though.
The challenge for America is not to come up with innovation and new ideas --- its finding a way to NOT build or make those products in China! What you end up with is American ideas, funded with American dollars, building Chinese factories and hiring Chinese workers, to make a product that is shipped back to America where minimum wage workers get to distribute and sell the 'American' product.
In the ancient days, (like pre-2000), the Innovation and New Ideas led to American companies opening American factories and hiring American workers to make American products. Those days are gone -- if not forever, then at least until an economiic re-set happens that restores the combination of financial and trade laws, removes the barriers to hiring workers in America, and to building factories in America.
Lots of folks dumping on Charlie here. My question is: Is there anything he wrote that isn't true?
I get that some of you have a knee-jerk negative reaction to anything Darwin said. Likewise, I get that you know that the Amerikkan paradigm values security over freedom- which only reveals the ultimate result of a dumbed-down populace. They actually believe that government can make them safe, when quite the opposite is true.
Government will steal from you in order to perpetuate itself until there is nothing left to steal. Then, it will move on to a new host, and leave you destitute and dying on the side of the road they built for you.
edit; the road they paid you to build for yourself.