1 Everyone is talking about innovation. Supposedly, it is as necessary as it is virtuous. However, the word “innovation” itself has become tarnished by dint of overuse and overly enthusiastic appropriation. Innovation is everywhere. It can be found in the economy, society, culture, education, management, and more. But if everything is innovative, in the end nothing is. The meaning and the significance of the word become diluted when it is used so excessively. But beyond this linguistic maelstrom and the permanent injunction to innovate, what hides behind the notion of innovation itself? What do we really know about innovations and the consequences of their dissemination? Franck Aggeri’s book endeavors to untangle these issues to separate the wheat from the chaff and encourage us to question, to open our eyes, by going back to the fundamentals so that we can understand both the notion of innovation and the processes it generates. He first seeks to present a constructive critique of innovation and then to suggest proposed action.

1. The roots of the culture of innovation

2 This book can be broken down into three distinct sections. The first looks back at where it all began: the origins of what Aggeri calls a “culture of innovation.” He provides a broad outline of innovation’s history to remind us that the notion of innovation is an ancient one viewed negatively within feudal societies because it called into question the established order. The notion of innovation later donned the trappings of progress and the positive form of industrialization represented by the industrial revolutions.

3 Aggeri then demonstrates how a culture of innovation was progressively established in three consecutive periods after the Second World War. The linear model of technological innovation emerged first, driven by the R&D departments of major industries and public authorities in particular. The open innovation approach (particularly with clusters) and that of break-away innovation (particularly with start-ups) emerged in the 1980s in response to the unwieldiness of the linear model. By the end of these first two periods, innovation had been recognized as an engine for economic growth, an orthodoxy set down in the theoretical principles of the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter at the beginning of the twentieth century. The third period covers the most recent metamorphosis of the culture of innovation. Aggeri introduces new protagonists (such as nonprofit bodies, NGOs, and the social and solidarity economy) and new spaces beyond the context of developed nations and their technological innovations. It is an era of green, social, and frugal innovations, of “low-tech.”

4 At this point, the author subtly begins to undermine the pro-innovation stance in terms of its limits and biases. For example, he asserts that the “Tech For Good” movement, the prevailing orthodoxy in innovation, relies on innovation to correct the negative effects of. . . innovation.

2. Shining a light on the dark side of innovation

5 Having clearly defined the culture of innovation, Aggeri reveals in meticulous detail the doubts, the hidden side, and the negative effects of innovation in the second part of his book. This is not easy because the culture of innovation has imposed a catchall assumption of something consensual, compatible with the liberal concept of a horizontal society undergoing permanent transformation, an individualist and malleable society that supposedly contributes to all forms of progress. The “projective city” or “city of projects” theorized by Chiapello and Boltanski [1] therefore promotes temporary connections between individuals within a project-based network and represents a characteristic of modern capitalism. Good innovative projects drive away the bad ones and a continuous flow of innovation even saves us the need of a great architect or visionary leader. A society of innovators creates its own destiny through its endogenous outflows of creativity.

6 A number of controversies surrounding innovation have certainly been studied widely, in sociology in particular (the effects of technologies or the lucrative ambitions of companies that innovate for example) but, according to Aggeri, not the very notion of innovation itself. The culture of innovation holds that innovation is good in and of itself. It is worth remembering that the saying “you can’t stop progress” appeared at the same time as the start of the combustion-engine automotive industry, despite lively social opposition. Modern, up-to-the-minute rhetoric about necessary innovations encouraging adaptability and promoting entrepreneurial risk-taking has been generated. The book includes an extract from a speech by President Emmanuel Macron at the VivaTech conference in June 2017 to serve as a reminder of how the positive effects of hyper-innovation economies and “start-up nations” that supposedly shake up traditions and acquired advantages have been expounded. The book also condemns the bias of theoretical supporters of this line of argument, particularly the economist Philippe Aghion, and their incentive-based aims. Modern innovation has generated its own form of newspeak that has been endorsed by “new public management,” for example.

7 However, the attractiveness of the notion of innovation conceals conceptual ambiguity. Analysis of the role played by politics is required to defend this position, necessitating a return to historic controversies and criticisms of innovation. For example, Aggeri draws on the work of historians to demonstrate an awareness of the environmental and health impacts as early as the nineteenth century. In other words, political decisions were taken to accept the consequences and to structure economic activity, particularly through legislation, despite the known risks. The historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz [2] talks of “disinhibition” (désinhibition), that is, “a lack of restraint,” to describe our responses to the new risks brought about by the industrial revolutions. Tolerance of the risks and a form of social acceptance had to be constructed by limiting or preventing controversies. The notion of progress meant that the risks of innovation were accepted throughout the nineteenth century. In France, an 1810 decree reflected the stated desire of the era to encourage the country’s industrialization. It established a regulation that was both administrative and liberal, based on administrative authorization and the use of civil jurisdictions to resolve conflicts with local people. One of the consequences of this decree was the liberalization of the environment, understood to mean that industrialists could provide financial compensation for any damage incurred as a result of their activities.

8 Fast-forward a century or so, Aggeri recalls reports from the early 1970s warning of an environmental crisis. The author also highlights how the negative impacts of innovation are rendered invisible ex ante through delay and correlation of scale effects (e.g., Roundup is a health catastrophe when used on a massive scale), distant pollution transfers, and complex social consequences. He draws on the example of electric vehicles, listing a whole series of variables and scales to counterbalance the argument that their carbon footprint is low. The impact of upstream electricity production, downstream battery recycling, the rarity of the resources required to manufacture the batteries, construction of a charging network, the increased weight of the vehicles, and the working conditions of those extracting the raw materials are just some of the variables providing some perspective in terms of the positive impact of electric innovation. Seemingly, innovation is green no longer.

9 Aggeri is not content simply to criticize the effects of technical innovation. He also addresses financial and managerial innovations. By degrees, he sets out the limitations and bias of “pro-innovation” positions. Thus, managerial innovations can damage the autonomy of work teams and damage health and working conditions, for example by generating paradoxical injunctions or untenable objectives. Financial innovations, meanwhile, have both amplified speculative bubbles involving new products without proper underlying securities and generated new management tools that act like invisible technologies influencing the behavior of managers. From this perspective, green finance is presented as a mirage, simply “technological solutionism” suitable for the shareholder model. Consideration of the unavoidable lifestyle changes imposed on us all is unnecessary within this approach. More widely, the bias of permanent economic growth means that the green mirage continues to loom large on the horizon.

3. Rethinking innovation in the Anthropocene era

10 In the Anthropocene era, it is no longer possible to keep innovating as we are. This line of reasoning marks the beginning of the third section of the book: how to innovate differently, to seek out other forms of innovation and the processes that can be used to achieve them. The book propounds and discusses two possible options. The first involves changing innovation evaluation criteria (be they management tools for companies or organizations, or macroeconomic indicators such as GDP) and adopting new legal definitions to oblige innovators and those governing them to be responsible for the long-term consequences of their projects. The “future-oriented” ethics espoused by Hans Jonas [3] are put forward to counterbalance traditional legal approaches to responsibility that take into consideration the known effects of past innovations. Responsibility for the future, including unknown dimensions, must be invented to protect the “commons” of our world. The book discusses a number of measurement and responsibility systems: an environmental tax system, green accounting, the “polluter pays” principle, expanding producer responsibility, corporate social responsibility, certifications, labeling, and sustainability indexes. For Aggeri, rendering innovators responsible for the long-term consequences of their projects goes hand in hand with the democratic exercise of innovation governance.

11 The second issue he examines is responsible innovation. The final chapter focuses entirely on how to achieve this responsibility, distinguishing between individual and collective forms and forms based on incentives and obligations. Let us not forget that Aggeri pioneered work on eco-design in France a generation ago. This book provides a meticulous, illustrated summary of the potential for more responsible innovation by transforming lifestyles, consumption, and production: overcoming planned and unplanned obsolescence (including a discussion of those adjectives), social and collaborative innovations, development of the secondhand market, repairs (the example of Fnac Darty, a France-based retailer, serves to clarify the institutional conditions for this type of service), circularity, frugal use of resources, and so on.

4. An interdisciplinary but “Western-centric” perspective

12 The author draws on a diverse range of literature that is very rarely analyzed together: economics, history, management, philosophy, sociology, and law. Indeed, those readers who do not know Aggeri will not be able to guess his academic roots as the sources are so meticulously combined. As a result, his arguments are always well-founded and there are no gratuitous assertions. Stripping away the ambiguities surrounding the term, he is careful to clarify any words, methods, overblown rhetoric, problems, and bias related to innovation. This book goes back to the sources, to the original authors, to the roots of the issue. It does not simply explain, criticize, or denounce innovation. Rather, it makes suggestions and discusses possible solutions. The essay format also means that a few striking examples can be chosen to illustrate his argument without the need for the methodological exercise required in a scientific journal. The book is well constructed, easy to read, and interspersed with useful summaries.

13 However, it is also “Western-centric.” Clearly, it would be fascinating to expand the definition, criticism, and practice of innovation to Japan (considered by the West to be a model of innovation in the 1980s), India, Brazil, China, or North Africa for example. At the time of publication of Aggeri’s book, the respected anthropologist Maurice Godelier [4] is publishing a new opus where he challenges Western modernity as a synonym of progress for the rest of the world.

14 Despite a very large number of references, it is surprising that some sources, such as the historian David Edgerton (2006), [5] have not been used. The resistance, persistence, reception, and dissemination of innovations in societies can be analyzed via his iconoclastic approach to innovation, and particularly how it is used. Edgerton suggests that many important historical innovations stemmed from the resolution of practical problems and progressive improvements, rather than great scientific discoveries. He rehabilitates the role of engineers, technicians, communities, and skilled workers. He also studies innovations in fields abandoned by researchers such as creole techniques, naval innovations, whaling, innovations in the euthanizing of people and animals, academic innovations, household innovations, Soviet innovations, and so on. In terms of analysis of technical innovation, it is just as valuable to study the paperclip, the condom, or barbed wire as deep tech start-ups. Like others, Edgerton’s work criticizes the emphasis put on supposed heroic inventors and advocates recognition of the collaboration and public effort involved.

15 Robert Gordon (2017) [6] and Edmund Phelps (2013) [7] might also have been referenced. Their pro-innovation bias notwithstanding, these economists believe that the golden age of growth is behind us. They are very critical of current technical innovations they consider to be unproductive, creating little wealth, and generating inequalities. It has been known since the Easterlin Paradox (1974) [8] at least that a society’s wealth does not correlate with the wellbeing of individuals within that society. [9] In France, GDP per inhabitant has doubled since the 1970s but wellbeing indicators have stagnated. Further, as demonstrated by Thomas Piketty, [10] the value of growth is captured by the wealthiest. It is therefore not the connections between innovation and growth that should be analyzed, but rather the factors for improving collective wellbeing (innovation being a possible option). Aggeri’s book helps us in this respect.

5. An important book for stimulating public debate about innovation

16 This book also helps us envisage a long-term perspective for how innovation should be approached, although this is not what it specifically sets out to do. Short-termism harms innovation. Major innovations are designed and implemented over a long timeframe. They require “patient capital” and cooperation between the public and private sectors. This book does not directly address the issue of innovation training. Innovations require specific investments: improved qualifications and skills, as well as more significant cooperation between those forming the value chains and between precisely those who are not used to cooperating (what is sometimes called open innovation).

17 Like a weed colonizing language, the word “innovation” has replaced other terms. Barely a generation ago, any discussion of innovation referenced “discovery,” “invention,” “application,” “patent,” or “progress.” Progress is problematic today. Étienne Klein put it perfectly at numerous conventions when he recalled that we continually question risk because it is no longer interpreted in terms of a desirable horizon toward which we are supposedly aiming but in terms of itself, its gravity alone. Historically, the notion of progress made it possible to accept the risks of innovation. Joseph Schumpeter’s “creative destruction” flourished. The notion of innovation as a shared understanding of progress has been progressively dissipated in the face of our fears of risk. Risk supersedes the values innovation can bring society. We must therefore restore the notion of progress to innovation—in other words, the types of values we collectively want to develop and shoulder.

18 The purpose of Aggeri’s book is not to put innovation on trial or promote degrowth. Rather, he seeks to explore how more responsible and more sustainable forms of innovation can contribute to the emergence of a post-growth model. To innovate differently, the trappings and beliefs of pro-innovation must first be cleared away. How we understand and measure innovation must change. It is not simply a question of continuing to grow by measuring increases in productivity, having found the right incentives for high-tech entrepreneurs alone.

19 Aggeri’s book is important because it clarifies the notion of innovation and the terms of the debates surrounding it. He ensures that the notion(s) of innovation, the results of innovation, and the processes of innovation are always considered together. Ultimately, there are few visible (or official), independent, and accessible places for the general public to debate social and responsible innovation, the purpose of innovation, the place of technoscience, and the values of progress in an uncertain and unknown future. For that matter, let us view the precautionary principle (not something addressed in this book!) as a principle of deliberation and not necessarily as a hindrance to innovation because of any potential risks. Aggeri’s remarkable book can help us understand and undertake innovation by freeing ourselves from biases, both old and new.