Ideology, engine or regime. Styles of critique and theories of innovation

摘要: The pervasiveness of innovation in the contemporary public discourse manifests itself in the omnipresence of figures like the “start-up creator”, the “entrepreneur”, or the “investor” in current economic and political debates. But the inevitability of innovation is more and more accompanied by a distinctive atmosphere of skepticism regarding its benefits, and the worldview it encompasses. As the influence of the “tech sector” grows larger, global companies such as Google, Facebook or Amazon are both heralded as seemingly never-ended sources of innovation, and regularly criticized for the ever-growing extension of their power, their disregard of public concerns such as data privacy and the social environment they promote on their grounds. The start-up culture at the heart of current innovation discourses is targeted by journalists, professionals and academics worried about the “collateral damage”, as a Guardian …