So, how do we get this retail innovation then?

Larry Elliott tells us that Philip Green wasn’t all that good at retail. More investment, more innovation, that’s what he needed to do.

Well, perhaps. It’s just that we’d rather like to see those plans from 15 and 20 years ago by those who say things should have been different. Who was actually, among the planners and those who would direct innovation, proposing what would have worked? We don’t say that we’ve looked in every corner, under every cushion on the sofa, but we’re not aware of any plans other than those with the vision of 20/20 hindsight.

Well, except those who founded their own companies and driven by market freedoms and the usual capitalist lust for profits went off and did it themselves. This then giving us our answer to this:

High streets and city centres will need to change because there are too many retailers chasing a dwindling amount of consumer spending. As was the case until relatively recently, they need to become places where people live and work as well as places where they shop.

But all this requires some serious investment in skills, physical infrastructure and innovation, rather than a “pile ’em high, sell ’em cheap, make a quick buck” approach. That model is bankrupt.

Last time around it was only free market competition in a capitalist system that uncovered those that had the right plans, the right answers. It’s not a huge leap of faith to insist that the same will be true this time around. Actually, observation of reality over the past couple of centuries, since we started using this dual system, tells us that free market capitalism is always the best method of uncovering those few who have the right answers.

Other than those with the extreme acuity to know now what should have been done then of course.