Economist Joseph Schumpeter described the entrepreneur this way:
"An innovation implies an innovator--- someone who is responsible for combining the factors of production in new ways. This is obviously not a 'normal' businessman, following established routines. The person who introduces change into economic life is a representative of another class--- or more accurately, another group, because innovators do not necessarily come from any social class. Schumpeter took an old word from the economic lexicon and used it to describe those revolutionists of production. He called them entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs and their innovating activity were thus the source of profit in the capitalist system." --- Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosophers (sixth edition) at 296.
Harvard's Clay Christiansen has added to this the notion of disruption. In higher education, for example, disruption --- according to Christiansen --- has been caused primarily by the technology enabling online learning. This has lowered the entry level cost of getting into the business of higher education dramatically. No more the need for sprawling campuses, expensive tenured faculties and all the supporting infrastructure of the traditional college.
Perhaps significantly, Trump was among those entrepreneurs who recognized this... thus Trump University. And, as Schumpeter also pointed out, once the entrepreneur has launched the new enterprise, he quickly loses interest... thus the lawsuits that have emerged against Trump University, not least because the plaintiffs didn't get any direct counsel from its founder as promised.
In the 2016 election the entrepreneurial Trump recognized an unserved market. And he brought Christiansen's principles of disruption to bear on that market. He realized that the new technologies, that have so disrupted traditional higher education, could also be used to disrupt the traditional political parties. Thus, no need for him to kowtow to the GOP establishment.
What we have witnessed is the first successful application of disruption theory in a national election by a consummate entrepreneur.
This same entrepreneur lost interest in Trump University and it came to ruin. Will he lose interest in his new role, once it falls into a routine? Or perhaps there is no such thing as routine in the presidency of the United States and he will remain engaged for the next four years.
Frankly, I'm not sure which would be worse.
This from my brother in an email this morning:
ReplyDeleteFor most of the last four months, the USC/L.A. Times Daybreak tracking poll has been the great outlier of the 2016 campaign — consistently showing a better result for Donald Trump than other surveys did.
In light of Tuesday's election returns, the poll now looks like the only major survey to see the wave coming.
Most of the summer and fall, the poll's results have been about 6 percentage points more favorable to the Republican than the polling averages. As of Tuesday morning, the poll's final forecast for the election showed Trump leading by a little over 3 points, 46.8 percent to 43.6 percent.
But just as four years ago the poll was one of the few that did not underestimate President Barack Obama's support, it seems as though it may have been on its own in not underestimating Trump's.
Some of the worst failures of polling have come about because pollsters, whether deliberately or not, converged on a single view of an election, in what is often referred to as "herding."
The poll told us in August, for example, that Trump's chance of winning depended on mobilizing white voters who had sat out the 2012 election — something that he clearly has succeeded in doing in several key states.
But Trump voters were notably less comfortable about telling a telephone pollster about their vote. Voters who backed a third-party candidate were even less comfortable responding to a poll. Women who said they backed Trump were particularly less likely to say they would be comfortable talking to a pollster about their vote.
That doesn't necessarily mean that a poll conducted online, the way the Daybreak poll is, necessarily will be more accurate than polls conducted by phone. But it is yet another indication that polling needs more, diverse ways to look at public opinion, not fewer.
Thank You,
Leo Castagnera
This can be viewed as a permutation on disruption theory: once again the Internet is disrupting an industry... in this case the polling industry, which will never be the same.
ReplyDeleteOur country has spoken, and we need to respect and accept that decision, and give the president elect his chance to, well, make something out of this country.
ReplyDeleteWe must not forget though the campaign and rhetoric that got him elected, and we must make sure he is constantly aware that a large portion of this country's population do not agree with or accept that attitude and the actions which inevitably go along with it. We must be on our guard. Thinking about the way the country and the world have changed during many presidential terms, it is clear how pivotal this moment is.
I truly hope that Trump will be successful in his presidency, and by successful, I mean solving as many of the problems facing the country as possible. This obviously becomes very subjective when we define what we all see as problems, which may be the biggest problem in itself. There is one problem though which Mr. Trump and I can agree on, and it is probably the main reason for his election. Those who have lost out on globalization and free trade, the ones who have lost their jobs and all opportunity, who decided this election, are tired of losing out. Both parties and all politicians have ignored their situation for decades now, and this is the result (not just in the US, but all over the industrialized world). Free trade and globalization benefit a country, I do not doubt that at all, but these benefits are not automatically distributed fairly. There are clear winners and losers, and somebody needs to ensure that the wealth is spread. The government is realistically the only party in a position to do this on such a large scale, by investing in the losing communities and their people. As the country moves away from one industry to another, those losing out need to be retrained for new opportunities. Investment is needed to place new economy in these communities. The US has historically been one of the industrialized countries that invests the least in this.
While I see the same problem Trump recognized and capitalized on in the election race, I sadly think it is a problem he has little chance of solving. I don't believe that most "rust belt" Trump voters are racist, or that they really believe much of his fear mongering. I believe that they finally see an alternative, which, best case, may improve their situation, and worst case, will send a message. It is so imperative that that message is finally received by people with real solutions.
As a non-Trump voter, I guess I expect the next 4 years to be a big disappointment for many of his supporters. It will be important that a viable alternative to that alternative be ready for 2020.