From Lawrence Lessig’s Remix:
One great feature of modern society is the institutionalized respect we give to processes designed to destroy the past. The free market is the best example. Democracy is another. In both cases, constant flux is not the objective (we have courts to protect private property; we have constitutions to slow the will of the democracy). But in both cases, the aim is to assure that the past survives only if it can beat out the future.