Transformation: Creative accumulation and creative destruction in the economy

Modern discourse is currently all about transformation and change. If we open the business sections of newspapers, we read stories about transformations – different transformations happening around us in many ways, such as those that lead to new technologies making old ones obsolete, new products and processes replacing old ones, and old industries and firms being challenged by new ones. AI, of course, plays a key role in these narratives of creative destruction sparked by entrepreneurial actors. Yet, AI is not the only disruptive technology today, nor has it been historically. And despite the focus on speed and the impact of transformative change, we can also note that much of what is in the economy, as observable, looks more like accumulation than destruction.