The Social Basis Of Book Review Innovation Is "Vitality"

By Zheng Lei

In the past two hundred years, the development of human society has been very rapid. Quite a number of developed and developing countries have entered the era of industrialization, and a few leading countries are stepping into the era of digital economy. The growth theory of macroeconomics has been committed to the construction of a theoretical framework to promote social progress. The theoretical circle takes the production function as the model, and gradually increases the factors of productivity. The cognition of population, land, capital and technology is deepening. It also puts forward the view that data is an essential element in the economy in the information age. At the same time, mainstream economists have gradually realized that there are irreparable defects in the analysis of social and economic problems only from the perspective of economics. Therefore, the research direction of "the impact of social factors such as system and culture on economic growth" has gradually formed. For example, Joel mokir explained the culture of growth from the perspective of economic history; Edmund Phelps explains the change of economic growth from the perspective of mass innovation with individualism.

Vitality map

The book "vitality" recently published by Phelps can be regarded as a further improvement and empirical analysis of the points raised in the great prosperity, and has put forward many enlightening concepts, which resonate with my thinking in recent years“ In addition to the economic cycle, there is also a transition cycle in social development. Through empirical research, it is not difficult to find that Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and other developed countries, in the first 40 to 60 years of the KangBo cycle, the society is full of vitality and the economy is growing rapidly. In the second half of the second KangBo cycle, the society began to become rigid, and the economic vitality obviously entered the recession stage. Even though the achievements of scientific and technological innovation are still emerging, the driving force of economic growth is obviously reduced. However, after 150 years of brilliant development in these countries, various social contradictions have become prominent, the function of social organizations is obviously weakened, it is difficult to improve the economic structure or adjust it more vigorously, and its dominant position gradually declines. It is not difficult to see that economic factors are crucial to growth, but whether economic factors can play a role depends on whether the social environment can provide space for them to play a role.

Similar to this, Phelps and others put forward that the source of innovation is "national culture, personal values and comprehensive entrepreneurship". In fact, these three aspects need to have specific social foundation, that is, the social environment should have organizations and mechanisms suitable for stimulating individuals to play their innovative vitality. Individual values itself come from the shaping of social ethics. It should be said that human beings have the motivation to try to innovate and have the desire of self-expression and realization. It is obviously not enough to emphasize the influence of this aspect on the innovation results. They divide the sources of innovation into independent innovation of the public and Schumpeter innovation of commercial enterprises, and believe that the former has a greater role in promoting economic growth, which needs more empirical results to support.

When we regard the innovation vitality as an inevitable condition, we can construct a more logical chain which can stimulate and protect the innovation vitality by the social environment, and then produce innovation activities and innovative achievements. From the perspective of modern production function, TFP actually includes social environment factors, and it can even be considered as the comprehensive expression of social environment on economic growth. However, the existing theory is to include technology, which can not explain why the revolutionary technological progress of information and communication after 1990 has not significantly achieved greater economic growth effect than the previous two industrial revolutions. In my opinion, the first industrial revolution happened to be the most dynamic period of British society, and the second industrial revolution was just the right time for the United States. The innovation of information and communication technology appeared in the middle and late period of the second conbo cycle in the United States, and there were obvious differences in social environment. For China, it has become a great opportunity to overtake on the curve. China and the United States have a relatively small start-up time difference in Internet and communication technology, and China has gained greater advantages in many aspects of this field.

We can use wages and profit margins to represent the productivity of individuals and businesses respectively. Capital always flows to the place where the expected return on investment is the largest, and technology is difficult to flow alone. It is the place where technology innovators can bring their technology into play. This involves human satisfaction, such as individualism and self-expression, which also need social support or basic guarantee such as personal social ascending channel and space, minimum living conditions, etc. Phelps and others listed "Activism" as the third element, which is closely related to the social environment I proposed. Phelps's term is "dynamic economy". In fact, we can replace "economy" with "society", so as to include all the contents of culture, system and the flexibility of social organization function, so as to provide a broader theoretical basis for innovation vitality.

Compared with the United States, China's innovation system is in a new stage and has greater plasticity; China's political system and social structure are more efficient in solving the problems that seriously restrict economic development, such as the gap between the rich and the poor and social injustice. The whole society needs to vigorously cultivate modern values that can promote the growth of economic vitality. The government should pay close attention to the key points and provide the general public with a better space for social development to release their creativity and give full play to their initiative.

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