There was a time when American experts were envious of the German scientific system, which was constantly producing great new discoveries. One should not underestimate “the growing daily evidence of the happy influence of a scientific culture on the industry and civilization of entire nations,” wrote the science expert William Barton Rogers in 1861, referring to Germany.
He pleaded for a new discipline of “Industrial Arts”. Shortly thereafter, he founded MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which from then on would take care of exactly that – organized progress.
Parts of the world, including Germany, are now looking with envy at the successes that began at MIT and other elite US universities. However, the excellent researchers on both sides of the Atlantic have not yet answered one question satisfactorily: Why does progress seem to be getting slower and more difficult? How can we then succeed in further increasing people’s standard of living?
Productivity growth has become a sluggish snail, and of all things in times of rapid technological progress. While investment in computers and new technologies has at times grown at double-digit rates, productivity growth has actually declined. The US economist Robert Gordon has described this phenomenon as the “productivity paradox”. There was no sign of this in the first industrial revolution: electricity and the steam engine unleashed a veritable boom in productivity. None of that today. Is progress a dying concept?
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
Not at all. But you have to look closely to understand what’s going on here. The first important question is: Is progress an endless linear process in which we can constantly reinvent and redesign everything? I assume no.
Miriam Meckel is a German journalist and entrepreneur. She is co-founder and CEO of ada Learning GmbH. She also teaches as a professor for communication management at the University of St. Gallen.
(Photo: Klawe Rzeczy)
In the 19th century, science made so many great discoveries that just as great leaps in civilization with corresponding growth spurts were possible: The invention of electricity, the steam engine, the discoveries of atomic and quantum physics revolutionized the economy and society. From the medieval clerics who believed in the flat earth to Galileo Galilei, it took a revolution in science, intelligence and faith.
Maybe it can’t always go on like this because the portfolio of human possibilities is finite somewhere. We may be able to fly to Mars today, but the laws of quantum physics remain in effect.
The leaps in innovation are getting smaller
Some people may not even allow the thought, and yet it is important to deal with it. Because this is the only way to plan how we actually want to bring together the growth in the world population, the scarcity of natural resources, the consequences of climate change and the increasing expectations of living standards.
If the theory of diminishing marginal utility applies not only to consumption but also to our progress, then it will change our future.
It also describes an approach that the US economist Benjamin Jones coined in 2009: the burden of knowledge. Using a large data set, he proves that with advances in technology and a growing body of knowledge, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discover anything new at all, and the leaps in innovation are becoming smaller.
Innovators get older over the years before making their first invention, while technical specialization and teamwork increase.
India doubles solar capacity in seven years
On the other hand, progress is not the same for everyone: A current study shows, for example, that the use of AI in companies depends very much on their size and the previous experience of the teams. Large companies benefit from the use of AI applications, while smaller companies benefit more from using AI on a meta-level to develop new innovation processes. The process by which progress can occur is also becoming more complicated.
Finally, progress does not mean the same thing to everyone. Since the beginning of industrial society at the beginning of the 19th century, the narrative has been: economic and moral progress in a society go hand in hand.
The expansion of renewable energy in the country does not result in a parallel reduction in CO2 emissions.
(Photo: AP)
We now know that there are very different views of what progress actually is in different parts of the world. India is currently building one of the largest solar parks in the world about a three-hour drive north of Bangalore. Three million solar panels will be able to produce the amount of energy from two large nuclear reactors. India has thus doubled its solar capacity in seven years, while it took Germany two decades to do so. That’s progress.
Training and further education in society and companies as well as institutions is important
Unfortunately, the expansion of renewable energy in India has not paralleled the decline in CO2 emissions. About 55 percent of India’s national energy consumption still comes from coal. If one assumes that the Indian GDP will quintuple by 2040, then the energy demand will at least double, the CO2 emissions will increase by 80 percent in the same time. That’s not progress.
“If I’ve looked further, it’s because I’m standing on the shoulders of giants.” Isaac Newton wrote in 1676 in a letter to a colleague. Today the sentence should be: “Even if I have laboriously climbed the back of a giant, I still only see a limited horizon.”
It’s getting harder to make big strides. That is why training and further education are so important in society, but also in companies and institutions. And the insight that we have to look at things differently. When it comes to progress, sometimes less can be more.
In this column, Miriam Meckel writes fortnightly about ideas, innovations and interpretations that make progress and a better life possible. Because what the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the rest of the world calls a butterfly. ada-magazin.com
More: The business model with the apocalypse is in full swing