DAN BREZNITZ OFFERS A WEALTH of sobering lessons on innovation and development. One stands out in particular: don’t be dazzled by glamour. He urges us not to succumb to the “techno-fetishism that equates innovation with high-tech industries, start-ups, and new products.” In fact, he points out, innovative activities that create inclusive growth and mass employment for workers at all skill levels —not just engineering whizzes and financial wizards—are not the ones that “inspire awestruck media coverage.” It is rather the unglamorous types of innovation, Breznitz argues, that “are the unsung heroes of economic growth and improved welfare.”
I agree—and indeed, we should take Breznitz’s argument even further. Besides recognizing the great contributions of humble varieties of production innovation, we should also acknowledge and nourish innovation by non-elites, whether it is in creating a new business, inventing ways to get around rigid regulations, delivering essential services under dire constraints, or solving problems in general. Discourses on innovation often suggest that only the rich, urban, highly educated, and technologically advanced are capable of innovation. Have you heard of farmers in developing countries being described as “innovative,” for example? Judging by graduate syllabi on the political economy of development at leading universities, non-elites can be recipients of foreign aid or victims of corruption and conflict, but not agents of innovation. Yet the reality is that they innovate all the time—they must, in order to survive.