A Social Innovation System Approach to Wisdom Society: Preliminary Theses

1. A Social Innovation System Approach to Wisdom Society:Preliminary Theses Bonn Juego PhD Student Technology Governance and Political-Economic Development Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia

2. Concepts and Tools fromCPE and EDE • (a) Critical Political Economy - social relations: ‘the political’, ‘the economic’, ‘the cultural’, ‘the ecological’, ‘the gender’, and all the other spheres of the society are organicallyconnected

3. (b) Evolutionary Development Economics • ‘Other Canon’ economics: reality economics; knowledge- and production-based • Keynes, Marx, Schumpeter, German Historical School, pre-Smith • Tallinn School: Technology Governance (public and private approach to knowledge-base, competitiveness, and social cohesion) - Erik Reinert: real economy - Jan Kregel: finance - Carlota Perez: technology and socio-economic development - Wolfgang Drechsler: Staatwissenschaften (state science)

4. Standard Textbook Economicsvs‘The Other Canon’ of Economics(Selected Starting Points) • STE vs Other Canon

5. SOCIAL INNOVATION SYSTEM APPROACH TO ‘WISDOM SOCIETY’:PRELIMARY THESES • An approach is always for some purpose. • [a] analytical tool/intellectual filter for understanding innovation system and development • [b] transformative framework for a ‘wisdom society’ (i.e., a knowledge society with ethical, social, and humane considerations)

6. SIS as an analytical tool: (1) Social innovation system refers to the existence of institutional synergies necessary for a socially embedded innovative activities and political-economic development. • Problem: disembedding of the market from the society • Task: re-embedding the market to the society

7. SIS as an analytical tool... (2) SIS improvises from the Freeman-Lundvall-Nelson NIS approaches. • ‘the social’ in innovation systems • i.e., innovation as a social endeavour that implicates the rest of the society

8. SIS as an analytical tool... (3) SIS incorporates all actors in the society – the state/government, firms, supporting institutions both domestic and abroad, and the people themselves – in the process of innovation. • extension of the triple helix states-firms-universities model in understanding the dynamics of innovation to introduce an indispensable set of actors: workers. • Marx: ‘Nature builds no machines, no locomotives, railways, electric telegraphs, self-acting mules etc. These are products of human industry; natural material transformed into organs of the human will over nature, or of human participation in nature. They are organs of the human brain, created by the human hand; the power of knowledge, objectified.’

9. SIS as an analytical tool... (4) Development, which is constitutive of innovation, is a social relation. • Organic relationship and interaction between the spheres of social life – ‘the political’, ‘the economic’, ‘the cultural’, ‘the ecological’, ‘the gender dimension’ • e.g., NIS in varying political-economic context • Scandinavia: (social) democracy • Asian NICs and Catching-up countries: authoritarian political regime (Singapore, China, Vietnam, Malaysia)

10. SIS as an analytical tool... (5) SIS recognises differences in national situations (the social specificities). The combined and uneven character of development suggests that societies develop at an uneven pace, requiring different innovation and development strategies from society to society. • e.g. IS within specific social structure • [a] state form: government structures and systems (the political); • [b] economic policies:relationship among economic activities and economic sectors; the relationship between financial capital and production capital, and the relationship among the factors of production such as capital, labour, land, and technology (the economic); • [c] system of ideas and values:(cultural diversity)

11. General Characteristicsof Social Relations inGlobalising Southeast Asia

12. SIS as a transformative framework: • SIS as an transformative framework: • for policy or advocacy • ‘Wisdom Society’: knowledge society with ethical, social, humane considerations

13. SIS as a transformative framework... (1) Innovation is not an end in itself, but a means towards a telos. • development: qualitative improvement to the lives of all • political development: democracy • economic development: raising standard of living for the workers; getting tax for the government; and high earnings for firms • telos: the good life • ‘The good is the most accurate measure of all things.’ (Aristotle, Politikos)

14. SIS as a transformative framework... (2) Compassion of critical political economy for humanity + insight of evolutionary development economics = formulation of a coherent institutional fit and synergy for development among three organically connected spheres in the society • [a] state form: government structures and systems (the political); • [b] economic policies:relationship among economic activities and economic sectors; the relationship between financial capital and production capital, and the relationship among the factors of production such as capital, labour, land, and technology (the economic); • [c] system of ideas and values:(way of thinking and lifeworld)

15. SIS as a transformative framework... • Wisdom is the antidote to the commodification of knowledge. • know for whom • ‘technology for whom?’, ‘knowledge for whom?’, ‘innovation for whom?’; ‘development for whom?’ • ‘Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.’ - Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Practical Reason

16. SIS as a transformative framework... • ‘It is no longer enough to be smart — all the technological tools in the world add meaning and value only if they enhance our core values, the deepest part of our heart. Acquiring knowledge is no guarantee of practical, useful application. Wisdom implies a mature integration of appropriate knowledge, a seasoned ability to filter the inessential from the essential.’ - Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, From Chaos to Coherence

17. SIS as a transformative framework... (4) Non-market actors are, and can be, forces of wisdom. As such, innovation is not to be exclusively associated with the market or commercialisation. • e.g., Linux, Open Source Movements, various NGOs

18. SIS as a transformative framework... (5) The academic disciplines of the social sciences, philosophy, arts, and humanities – which are marginalized in IS discourses – play important roles for the realization of a wisdom society.