Marketplace of Ideas Blog

FightingBob.com’s Bill Kraus points out a few things people who support government-funded R&D don’t seem to grasp:

Government stimulus money goes to going concerns and welfare and general do-gooding. If we base our recovery on what the government knows how to do we will probably become more like Scandinavia and less like America.

Government doesn’t, can’t, won’t, shouldn’t participate in the risky, uncertain, wholly un-bureaucratic business of creating new businesses, new jobs or a new economy. What government can do is create incentives and rewards for those who will do what the government doesn’t know how to do, can’t, won’t, and shouldn’t do.

The latter-day versions of George Mead, who turned the excess power of the dam he owned into Consolidated Paper, or of the unemployed salesman and the hardware dealer who turned wood into paper and created Kimberly Clark, are unknown and unknowable.

Even Bill Gates, who became a titan of the computer economy, when asked what worries him about the future of Microsoft, says, “It’s two guys in a garage somewhere who are developing an idea that will make what we make obsolete.” …

What have we got, and what can we make that others need and that we can export?

Manufactured goods. Partially, but never as important as in the 20th century.

Ideas. Yes. We are a creative, educated nation full of innovative people. What many have forgotten is that the entrepreneurial spirit and mindset was a major factor in the winning of WWII.

It still exists. It will find the exportable ideas and products that will add the 21st century to the country’s winning streak.