Over-Production of Personnel and Innovation in Three Social Settings

Abstract

This paper attempts to establish that three distinct types of intellectual innovation have been accompanied by, and partly produced by, social processes set in motion by over-production of personnel. Over-production occurs when there is a rapid growth in the number of persons qualified to occupy positions involving expertise, without a corresponding increase in the number of positions available. It generates competition among eligible persons for scarce rewards, which, in turn leads them to seek new audiences for their special services and new sources of economic support. Those experts engaged in competition tend to select and emphasize ideas and techniques which improve their own career opportunities. As a result, competition promotes intellectual innovation. It is argued that over-production, accompanied by competition for scarce rewards, has been partly responsible for religious innovation in North African Islam, artistic change in nineteenth century French painting, and intellectual development in modern science.