Tom Friedman in the NY Times this morning wrote that India and China are booming and they are worried about it. Examining the consequences of the growth of these two mega economies, he quoted someone declaring the need to “incubate ideas”.  This should always be on the agenda of ALL countries and ALL thinking people.  But what does it mean?

I am thinking about how to encourage people to think outside the envelope.  This is difficult because it is safe inside that envelope. To go outside it and try something new or something that is a variation of what works is risky.  The risk taker is not looked on with welcoming eyes. Change, which is the true constant, comes slowly and like the debates on college campuses and in legislative halls it is resisted and fought at every step.  The reason is simple. The rights and privileges of those who have been in power – either in ideas or in politics – resist change that will take prestige or power away from the incumbents.  What is new and different is suspect and fought against bitterly by those entrenched.

But this is about the need for incubation of ideas.  I think what the writer meant was that too many young people are flocking to professions that are popular and remunerative today. Compared to the older economic system of capitalism that provided so many new, good and low priced things, instinct should have nudged entrepreneurs to look to expand frontiers and develop unthought-of and marginal ideas. A move in this direction could create ever new economies and supply of “things” that would make life easier and better IF they could be afforded. The trick is to encourage new ideas – let them cook and give those help until room is made for them in the market place. The present technological wave took time to take root.

Unchecked growth in the economies of the two most populous countries in the world, India and China, might be a good thing.  But both countries have thinkers who warn that what will result is copying the U.S. blueprint and end up with the same problems now besetting the prime example of democracy in the world.  This would indeed be a shame for we have untrammeled success in killing off the industrial model that made America great but we have not solved the problem of retraining workers and finding new incentives to work toward pensions which have somehow disappeared. Our debt is ENORMOUS. Jobs go overseas.

We need to incubate ideas how to make education available to the poorest and weakest as well as to the older, discarded worker in our rust belts. We need to provide for the elderly and share the wealth to make equality a reality.