In his recent op-ed piece in the Financial Times, “Europe is a continent that has run out of ideas,” Economics Nobel Laureate Edmund Phelps hangs the near collapse of the world’s second largest economy on a failure of the collective culture to produce real innovators.

More so, he sees the same fate for America if it continues to rely on government incentives, business school training and monstrous financial institutions for capital. Phelps espouses that innovation prowess is forged in the fiery furnace of experience and laments that American’s have grown soft.

While it’s commonplace to politicize Professor Phelps’ views, he raises important issues about the role culture plays in producing economic growth. In his bestseller Mass Flourishing: How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change, he lays out a sweeping approach for restoring our cultural prowess for innovation. Curiously, for someone who eschews the current spotlight on human capital development -- for example, he believes the educational focus on STEM is wrongheaded -- he espouses a uniquely humanist view. The reading of inspirational literature, the exploration of the unknown and the persistence that comes from overcoming grievous challenges are all seen as key to developing an entrepreneurial spirit.

For more on this piece by Jeff DeGraff, please see this link:  http://michiganradio.org/post/...-innovation#stream/0