The Innovation Cycle

The Schumpeterian cycle, the innovation cycle, consists of innovative industrial processes that in simple terms destroy jobs and occupations and replace those jobs and occupations with different ones.
The fundamental failure of interpretation of Schumpeter's work as documented in the historical record of industrialism is the notion that pervades theories of entrepreneurship that innovation creates more jobs. There is no theoretical basis for this idea. Innovation creates different jobs not necessarily more jobs. We may actually find this out over the next ten years.
Certainly increased productivity means more profits which imply more discretionary income which can lead to increased consumption and more jobs. The question possibly being answered is whether there is a direct correlation between increased profits, discretionary spending, consumption, and jobs. The contraindications are reinvestment as indicated in a very robust stock market, a slightly lagging retail market which is tending to move upscale, and online retailing which is technologically, not labor, intensive.
If we are at a tipping point in the innovation cycle, jobs and occupations will not be replaced. This question and its answer should be the focus of of our attention over the next ten years and if a tipping point is indicated then our focus must be on the kind of society in which we wish to live.
Be well and do good.

Real Estate, Post-Industrialism, and the Schumpeterian Cycle

First of all, real estate is not an 'industry' as the word is understood in the value-added socioeconomy. Real estate is an art auction where true art is dear and bids entertained and no more an industry than Dali at his marketing best. It is, simply put, how industrialism shares the wealth and that is all it is.
People who are participating in the value-added socioeconomy need a roof over their heads certainly. That is a part of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but the real estate market, for all its fundamental neccessity, is derivative of and incidental to the operations of that economy. Real estate is how industrialism shares the wealth and that is that.
Post-Industrialism, the most ill-thought and technologically delirious philosophy ever created, is the model that informs these late stages of modernism and affects, or infects, current models of postmodernism. It is no more than an abstract conservation of a theme park society without a thought given, at all, absolutely, to where one gets the money to pay for all those wonderful rides.The Schumpeterian cycle is the cycle of innovation and creative destruction that has been well documented in the history of industrialism. We are in a massive one of those cycles which promises productivity increases of 6% to 7%. We are also at the limits of incidental transfer of wealth, the magic hand of Post-Industrialism. There is a natural Schumpeterian limit on how much wealth can be transferred without impeding innovation.
We are going to learn some very hard lessons over the next ten years as unemployment hovers near 7%, the housing market remains moribund, and productivity soars. It is in the American character to learn hard lessons. It is the way of pragmatism. At some point we are going to have to recognize that society can only endure so much innovation without serious damage to the social fabric, that the innocent number used to represent the unemployment rate also represents human beings' lives being destroyed, that Post-Industrialism is no more than a blinding visit from Prometheus, filling our hearts with blind, and groundless, hope and that speculating in real estate is like speculating in art.
Be well and do good.

Psychological Spaces, Self-Realization, and Self-Esteem

A psychological space is the cognitive and emotional space which generates and is generated by our behavior. It is the abstract context of our lives much as the corresponding physical space we behave in is the 'real' context of our lives. The object of the behavioral exercise can be summed up in a nice dinner with friends. One eats, one talks, and one gains a sense of oneself. Certainly we do vastly different things, but they serve absolutely the end of a dinner with friends. To this point, within the context of postmodernism, there is no problem with this radical characterization of the problem of existence. However, human beings, being insecure in a hostile universe, must ask the question - what about legitimacy? That question jumps from postmodernism to pragmatism. Pragmatism says your psychological space is legitimate if your behavior is successful. What determines success? In America, from the beginning, success is understood as serving an enduring Interest as a market function to the benefit of oneself and one's society, which is no more than a socially valuable exercise in self-realization. That brings us to self-esteem. Can one be successful and have low self-esteem? I have known many such people and in every instance the low self-esteem was externally driven by conditioning, both incidental and deliberate. It is much easier to persuade someone to act against their interests if their self-esteem is low. Be well and do good.