Is there anything more innovative than culture? At first glance, the answer to this may seem obvious. But it's not quite like that. Culture and innovation are not the same thing. And sometimes they have a rather tense relationship. This is due to the understanding of innovation. Innovation is mostly equated with new products, sometimes with new processes. So the term is understood technically and economically alone. And the culture is left out. That becomes clear in a story.

 

After the Second World War, American Earl Silas Tupper invented plastic cans, the construction of which made it possible to squeeze some air out by pressing on the softer lid, thereby creating a slight negative pressure inside. In 1951 Tupper then made American Brownie Wise the boss of his sales. Wise had impressed him with a new sales concept: women from the neighborhood met at so-called ‘patio parties’ and were introduced to the advantages of the new cans while drinking coffee. A so-called ‘Tupper Lady’ threw cans filled with water to the participants or stood with one foot on their harder outer shell. And the attendees could not only order, but also become Tupper Ladies themselves — and earn their own good money with the commissions on the ordered cans at a time when, after World War II, American society ordered women back to the kitchen — the very same society that had previously called them into war production with the advertising character ‘Rosie the Riveter’ and the slogan ‘We Can Do It!’ At the same time, Brownie Wise also fostered a sense of community among women. Under the motto ‘Faith, Respect, and Sorority’, the ladies could feel being a part of a large Tupper Family: "If we build people, they will build the company," said Brownie Wise. The company's sales and profits exploded in just two to three years. Thousands of Tupper Ladies were invited every year to the 400-hectare company premises in Florida, which had been transformed into a fairytale park. At these so-called ‘Jubilees’ they were introduced to new products, and the most successful saleswomen received lavish additional bonuses such as fur coats or cars.

 

But what was the innovation there? Just the plastic cans? Or the distribution system? The Tupper parties? Or the ‘we’ feeling of the ladies? The answer depends on whether the concept of innovation should only apply to a new product - or also to new ideas, that is, whether it should extend far beyond the mere economic area. 

 

What most people don't know is that Karl Marx was the first theorist to deal with innovation. He explained the competition among the capitalists with the fact that they always wanted to be a step ahead of their competitors:

 

Austrian Joseph Schumpeter built on this when he thought he recognized the principle of ‘creative destruction’: New products make old ones superfluous because they offer better solutions for people's needs:

 

Internet-based companies like to use the creative destruction nowadays to praise their offers as alternative »disruptions« and the only possible future solutions regardless of losses, even if there are solutions that may be much better. Or even if each of them is not as creative as they appear to be.

 

Then there has to be someone or something to organize the many involved players and finance the big projects. That is mostly - the state, as innovation economist Mariana Mazzucato has shown using the iPhone as an example. Most elements and components of the iPhone exist only because their development was previously initiated and paid for by the state. The Internet, microprocessors and micro hard drives were initiated and financed by an agency of the United States Department of Defense, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, DARPA for short. And even the SIRI voice interface is a baby of DARPA.

 

So it is obvious that innovation can easily go wrong if it is only understood from a technical or product perspective. For example, not every new product is automatically successful. Other factors have to be added. For example, a certain mood - like that of women after World War II who had gotten used to working and having their own income. Or there has to be a creative-cultural dimension, just like with the design of the iPhone. So innovation is much more complex in its meaning and effects than is usually understood.

 

All of this is best summed up by a completely different thinker who dealt with the topic of innovation as early as 1890: French lawyer and sociologist Gabriel Tarde comprehended it as everything that is socially relevant being:

“Any innovation or improvement in any kind of social phenomena such as language, religion, politics, law, industry or art. [...] The real causes of the changes [...] consist of a chain of very numerous ideas, which are however different and discontinuous, although they are linked by even more numerous counterfeiting actions, of which they are the model.”[iv]

 

If innovation wants to change, it must also face up to its social and cultural responsibility. Otherwise, it is itself only a consumer item that can be replaced by a new product at any time.

[i]       Marx, Karl (1872/1986): Das Kapital (Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe – MEGA) 2, II.6. Berlin, 476.
[ii]      Schumpeter, Joseph (1942/2003): Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. London, New York, 83.
[iii]     Mazzucato, Mariana (2014): The Entrepreneurial State. London, New York, Dublin, 207.
[iv]     Tarde, Gabriel (1890/2003): Les lois de l'imitation, zit. n. d. dt. Ausg.: Die Gesetze der Nachahmung. Frankfurt a.M., 26.