We are a culture that is enamoured of newness, obsessed with invention and innovation. We claim to celebrate creative, out-of-the-box thinking. Certainly we would never say of a smartphone or a piece of art, ‘This is the best gadget or painting that has ever been created and it will never be surpassed, and we shouldn’t even try!’ It would be naïve to underestimate the power of human creativity. So why is it that, when it comes to our economic system, we have so readily swallowed the line that capitalism is the only possible option and we shouldn’t even think about creating something better?
