Technological change is a game against nature rather than against other players, what von Neumann and Morgenstern have called a “Crusoe game”. Invention occurs at the level of the individual, and we should address the factors that determine individual creativity. Individuals, however, do not live in a vacuum. What makes them implement, improve, and adapt new technologies, or just devise small improvements in the way they carry out their daily work depends on the institutions and the attitudes around them. It is exactly at this level that technological change is transformed from invention, a game against nature, to innovation, a complex, positive-sum game with many players and very incomplete information*.
The Lever of Riches: Technological Creativity and Economic Progress
*An apt description of the difference between the two types of games was provided by Rudolf Diesel, who distinguished two phases in technological progress: the conception and carrying out of the idea, which is a happy period of creative mental work in which natural obstacles are overcome, and the introduction of the invention (which we would call today innovation), which is “a struggle against stupidity and envy, apathy and evil, secret opposition and open conflict of interests, the horrible period of struggle with a man, a martyrdom even if success ensues (cited in Klemm, “A History of Western Technology” 1964, p 346)
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