Simplistic argument but I thought this bit was worth posting:
I deeply believe that economic innovation lives by the same rules as natural selection. Yes, we must have selective pressure to allow the best and brightest to flourish, but we must also have a situation of surplus where we can allow people to experiment with new ideas, whether it be in the sphere of business, culture, education, philosophy or any other discipline that has been so vital to our economic advancement.
The politics of neo-darwinism say that we maximize innovation by maximizing the pressure on workers to innovate means to create value for the economy. But isn’t it already clear that this is not the case. How could we have innovation without having the time to educate ourselves or the capital to empower our business ideas. It is no wonder that innovations have always come predominantly from the middle and upper class where they are afforded the economic breathing room to experiment with new ideas.