Cheaper is an innovation

I have this on-going argument with my man K-Koopa.

My claim is that the Chinese are performing important innovations in solar power panels. Not big changes, but marginal ones that will make production cheaper and will make use of solar power possible.

(And, as Angus has noted, this is a GOOD thing...for us)

Anyway, Matt Ridley makes a more general form of that argument: marginal changes that reduce cost are the core innovations we can expect from active economies. The major innovations (steel, steam engines, transistors, silicon circuits) are pretty rare. The key innovations are finding ways to make other innovations affordable and mass produced.