Innovation and failure

Earlier this month I blogged on the essential role that failure plays in discovery. Klein has a nice reference dealing with the intersection of market and collectivist orders in shaping innovation and, by implication, impacting the speed with which feedback (both positive and negative) diffuses through society.



The innovations that became the foundation for the Internet originate from two eras that illustrate two distinct models for accumulating innovations over the long haul. The pre-commercial era illustrates the operation of several useful non-market institutional arrangements. It also illustrates a potential drawback to government sponsorship — in this instance, truncation of exploratory activity.