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THei appeared an image of respect and restraint. But on Wednesday, Rebecca Newsom and Amy McCarthy raised their Greenpeace banner, “Who Voted for This?” When they come out with the word Their neighbors in the Birmingham conference hall were not impressed. Members of the Conservative Party may have appreciated the benefits of disrupting the Prime Minister’s speech. But this was not the riot they had in mind.
Why does this D-word have such appeal to the glazed eyes of future fixer-uppers? The story begins 25 years ago when Harvard Business School Professor Clay Christensen published a book called The Innovator’s Dilemma.
Christensen argues that businesses can make the mistake of continuing with persuasive and incremental growth (“sustainable innovation”) when something that is actually cheaper but more radical can meet the demand for something new and untapped (“disruptive innovation”). Disruptors conquer new markets and defeat rivals in a calm but cautious manner.
As usual, when something new and exciting emerges in the business world, followers take the idea, spread it, and distort it. Hence “disruption” has become an unquestionable goal for many startups and a hallmark of dangling in the eyes of venture capitalists. Uber disrupted the taxi business. So now the goal was to find an “Uber” for various activities. “Disrupt or be disrupted,” ran the mantra.
Historian Jill Lepore, a Harvard professor, pointed out in a 2014 New Yorker article how riotous nostalgia has spiraled out of control.[Christensen’s] Acolytes and pretenders, including quite a few hucksters, more or less called for the disruption of everything else,” she wrote. In the year The financial crisis of 2008 was caused in part by reckless innovation. “These products of disruption have contributed to the panic with which the concept of disruption thrives.”
On Wednesday, Liz Truss told her audience: “The scale of the problem is huge. War in Europe for the first time in a generation. A more uncertain world after covid. and the global economic crisis. This is why we have to do things differently in Britain. We must rise up. As the last few weeks have shown, it will be difficult. Whenever there is change, there is disruption. Not everyone will like it. But all will benefit from the result – from a growing economy and a better future.
But who wants more interruptions in their lives? No homeowner is facing a 6% interest rate on a two-year fixed mortgage, the highest rate for 14 years. Not the taxpayer, now many years on the hook to pay the cost of the government’s unpaid tax cuts. Described by Kwasi Kwarteng as a “miniature disturbance,” these market movements have large and lasting effects.
Truss’s words were also a reckless homage to the notion of “creative destruction,” a phrase coined by the Austrian-born economist Joseph Schumpeter. Although he has an egalitarian and fundamental view of the value of this concept, followers of creative destruction tend to emphasize the first term and minimize the implications of the second.
Business language and ideas often spill over into politics, influencing the decision-making process and the words used to explain and justify it. “Choice” has long been held up as an indisputable good, with public policy actions akin to a supermarket adjusting its fruit and vegetable display. But who has real choice and the power to choose? Not all of them.
Let us be wary of blinkered leaders who tell us that the future awaits us if we are just tough and brave – as long as we stand by them in the “inevitable” hard times. It may be safe for violence that is so conveniently lost. For those whose future is assured, it can hold a bit of terror. But when people tell you that tough decisions are unfortunately made, remember who makes the decisions. It is probably the person who creates them.
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