Joseph Schumpeter insisted that innovation is the very essence of economics and most certainly of a modern economy. . . In the economy of change and innovation, a profit, in contrast to Karl Marx's theory, is not a "surplus value" stolen from the workers. On the contrary, it is the only source of jobs for workers and of labor income. The theory of economic development shows that no one except the innovator make a genuine "profit"; and the innovator's profit is always quite short-lived.
—Peter Drucker