Articles on 29 October 2025

A Quip That Stings but Also Inspires

Context

• The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics, awarded to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion, and Peter Howitt, marks a turning point in the understanding of innovation, growth, and history.
• At its heart lies a quiet irony: while modern economics celebrates data and precision, the enduring foundations of progress are built through historical understanding and institutional learning.
• Mokyr’s quip that economic historians don’t win the prize exposes a deeper truth, prosperity depends less on mathematical models than on the social machinery that carries knowledge, develops experimentation, and restrains privilege.
• Growth, in this view, is a social technology before it is a mechanical one.

The Social Foundations of Growth

• Modern prosperity emerged not from a single invention or genius, but from civic institutions that enabled useful knowledge to travel.
• Coffeehouses, printing presses, guilds, dissenting congregations, and learned societies formed the networks through which ideas circulated and recombined.
• Apprenticeships, shop-floor heuristics, and rule-of-thumb engineering created a shared code of practical know-how.
• Where markets were contestable and cities porous, these networks incubated capability. Where institutions ossified, they blocked entry and throttled innovation.
• Schumpeter’s creative destruction operates only when this social infrastructure allows new ideas to challenge entrenched power.
• Economic growth, therefore, depends as much on the openness of civic life as on the brilliance of invention.

Dynamic Innovation and Institutional Design

• The work of Aghion and Howitt gives formal shape to this historical reality.
• Their Schumpeterian growth framework shows how innovation rents attract entrepreneurs, how incumbents defend their positions through lobbying or litigation, and how policy choices decide whether competition fuels progress or stifles it.
• Innovation thrives when experimentation is cheap and entry easy, and it falters when institutions harden into monopolies.
• Together, Mokyr, Aghion, and Howitt reveal that innovation is sustained not by privilege but by process.
• The vitality of an economy lies in protecting the engine of experimentation, not the owners of the last engine.

Economic History as a Living Laboratory

• Economic history offers the long view needed to understand how societies learn, adapt, and institutionalize progress.
• Its archives reveal incentives and behaviours that cannot be captured by regressions or identification strategies alone.
• Douglass North and Robert Fogel demonstrated that institutions and counterfactual reasoning belong at the core of economics.
• Claudia Goldin’s work traced how historical patterns of women’s labour participation shaped modern markets. Simon Kuznets’ national accounts were inseparable from the historical measurement of economies.
• Economic history, far from being a sideshow, is the laboratory where culture, rules, and technology interact. It illuminates how societies build the frameworks that turn invention into sustained prosperity.

Modern Challenges Through a Historical Lens

• AI and jobs

  • Technology shocks do not simply destroy employment; they reprice skills and reorganize tasks.
  • The critical issue is transition management, determining who bears the cost of adaptation.
  • Policies that ensure portable benefits, skills bridges, interoperable systems, and data portability protect workers and entry, not incumbents.

• Public debt

  • The Dutch and British states achieved credibility not through austerity but through institutional capacity, reliable taxation, representative government, and enforceable contracts. Fiscal sustainability is institutional, not arithmetic.

• Inequality

  • History exposes how guilds defended privilege under the guise of quality control. True reform lies in contestability, lowering barriers so that capability, not pedigree, determines success.
  • In the digital age, open standards, pro-competitive procurement, and limits on self-preferencing echo the role once played by coffeehouses and cheap pamphlets in spreading opportunity.

Technology, Time, and the Caution of History

• Nick Crafts’ reinterpretation of the British Industrial Revolution shows that general-purpose technologies, steam, ICT, AI, appear late in productivity data because they demand complementary investments and institutional adaptation.
• Jared Diamond’s broader lens reminds us that technology unfolds within geographical and ecological constraints.
• Economic history tempers euphoria with realism and despair with patience, revealing that progress is cumulative, uneven, and deeply embedded in its social context.

Conclusion

• Recognition often arrives late, both for prizes and productivity, yet what endures is not acclaim but the machinery of openness that keeps innovation alive.
• Prosperity is the exception, not the norm. It survives only where societies argue productively, adapt institutionally, and defend contestability against the drift of privilege.
• The true legacy of Mokyr’s insight is not a celebration of the past, but a warning for the present: the wealth of nations depends on how fiercely they protect the process of discovery and diffusion.
• History’s verdict is clear, progress must be argued for, institutionally and incessantly.

A Quip That Stings but Also Inspires FAQs

Q1. What is Joel Mokyr’s main idea about economic growth?
Ans. Joel Mokyr believes that economic growth is a social technology before it is a mechanical one, meaning progress depends on the institutions and networks that allow knowledge to spread and be used productively.

Q2. How do Aghion and Howitt’s ideas complement Mokyr’s view?
Ans. Aghion and Howitt provide a dynamic model of innovation, showing how policy and competition shape whether new ideas thrive or are blocked, complementing Mokyr’s focus on the social foundations of growth.

Q3. What role does economic history play in understanding innovation?
Ans. Economic history serves as a laboratory of long-term learning, revealing how societies build institutions that transform invention into lasting prosperity.

Q4. How does Mokyr’s historical perspective apply to Artificial Intelligence and jobs?
Ans. Mokyr’s perspective shows that technology does not simply eliminate jobs but reshapes skills and tasks, making policies for smooth transitions and worker protection essential.

Q5. What broader lesson does history teach about prosperity?
Ans. History teaches that prosperity is rare and fragile, sustained only when societies protect openness, contestability, and continuous institutional adaptation.

Source: The Hindu

Math is Not a Tool for Cultural Nationalism

Context

• The controversy surrounding the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) draft undergraduate mathematics curriculum under the National Education Policy (NEP) has ignited a crucial debate about the intersection of education, nationalism, and scientific inquiry.
• While the proposal aims to integrate traditional Indian mathematical knowledge into the modern curriculum, it has faced strong opposition from over 900 Indian mathematicians, who argue that it is pedagogically flawed and ideologically driven.
• At the heart of the issue lies a vital question: can a discipline grounded in universal truths, like mathematics, be reshaped through cultural or nationalist lenses without distorting its essence?

The Core of the Controversy

• The draft curriculum has been criticised for its limited coverage of core subjects, neglect of applied mathematics, and poorly designed electives.
• More significantly, the inclusion of subjects such as Kala Ganpana (traditional Indian time calculation), Bharatiya Bijganit (Indian algebra), and Shulba Sutra (ancient altar geometry) has raised fears that the curriculum prioritises symbolic cultural revival over academic rigour.
• Opponents believe such content undermines the universal and scientific nature of mathematics, transforming it into a tool of ideological assertion rather than intellectual development.

The Debate on Cultural Pride vs. Intellectual Integrity

• Supporters of the NEP, notably Manjul Bhargava, the 2014 Fields Medal winner, argue that India’s mathematical heritage deserves rightful recognition.
• Bhargava maintains that acknowledging ancient contributions does not equate to glorifying one civilisation over another, but rather to restoring balance to a Eurocentric narrative.
• This effort to reclaim cultural pride is understandable and historically justified.
• Yet, an overemphasis on nationalism in mathematics risks replicating the very colonial mindset it seeks to resist.
• To portray mathematics as an exclusively Indic creation is to commit the same error of cultural monopolisation once made by colonial scholars.
• Mathematical truths transcend geography and culture, the proposition that 2 + 2 = 4 is neither Western nor Indian; it is simply true. When nationalism infiltrates a discipline built on logic and universality, it dilutes both its objectivity and global relevance.

The Universal Character of Mathematics

• Mathematics draws strength from its universality and cumulative evolution.
• From Babylonian number systems to Greek geometry, from Indian algebra to Arabic numerals, its history is a story of cross-cultural collaboration rather than isolated civilisational achievements.
• To confine its teaching within a Vedic or Indic framework is both historically inaccurate and pedagogically unsound.
• Moreover, most mathematics instructors lack formal training in Indology and may struggle to interpret ancient texts by Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, or Bhaskara with academic neutrality.
• Without such preparation, there is a risk of ideological bias, where students absorb mythologised history instead of scientific reasoning.
• A modern curriculum must therefore balance cultural appreciation with analytical depth, ensuring that historical context complements, not replaces, technical competence.

The Broader Implications for Education and Democracy

• The debate extends beyond curriculum design into the philosophical purpose of education and the defence of rational inquiry in a democracy.
• When knowledge becomes a vehicle for nationalism, education ceases to serve truth and begins to serve ideology.
• The danger lies in replacing scientific evidence with cultural rhetoric, as seen in the increasing frequency of pseudoscientific claims made by public figures, such as assertions that mythological deities were the first space travellers.
• In a world defined by artificial intelligence, data science, and global collaboration, India’s academic strength depends on rigorous, evidence-based education, not revivalist sentiment.
• Scientific reasoning must remain the cornerstone of democratic progress, ensuring that national pride complements, rather than compromises, intellectual honesty.

Conclusion

• The debate over the UGC’s mathematics curriculum reveals a fundamental tension between cultural recognition and intellectual integrity.
• Acknowledging India’s mathematical heritage is essential, but embedding it within a nationalist framework threatens to undermine the universal, collaborative nature of knowledge. Mathematics belongs to humanity, not to any single civilisation.
• Education should empower students to think critically and globally, nurturing pride in heritage without sacrificing scientific objectivity.
• Only through such balance can India’s educational reforms truly strengthen both national identity and intellectual freedom.

Math is Not a Tool for Cultural Nationalism FAQs

Q1. What is the main controversy surrounding the UGC’s draft mathematics curriculum?
Ans. The main controversy is that the draft introduces nationalist and cultural elements into the mathematics syllabus, which many mathematicians believe weakens its academic and scientific integrity.

Q2. Why do critics oppose the inclusion of topics like Kala Ganpana and Bharatiya Bijganit?
Ans. Critics oppose these topics because they view them as symbolic attempts to promote cultural pride rather than strengthen mathematical understanding.

Q3. What argument does Manjul Bhargava make in support of the new curriculum?
Ans. Manjul Bhargava argues that recognising India’s ancient mathematical contributions helps restore balance to a global narrative that has long ignored non-Western achievements.

Q4. Why is mathematics considered a universal discipline?
Ans. Mathematics is considered universal because its truths, such as 2 + 2 = 4, remain valid regardless of culture, geography, or historical context.

Q5. What broader concern does the debate raise about education in India?
Ans. The debate raises concern that education could become a tool for nationalism rather than a means of promoting scientific reasoning and democratic values.

 Source: The Hindu