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Not necessarily. Most innovation is state funded in general. Real innovation requires either monopoly profits or state funding because otherwise research must n
by tehjoker 6y ago
Not necessarily. Most innovation is state funded in general. Real innovation requires either monopoly profits or state funding because otherwise research must necessarily be directed towards short term payoffs.
Investors will not tolerate time lines of 10+ years and hundreds of millions to billions of dollars sunk.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoMost ‘expensive basic’ innovation is state funded. Most short-term <10 year innovation is industry funded.
- tehjoker 6y agoTrue, that's because the system is designed to subsidize expensive research and let industry exploit cheap research. It makes no sense to think that state funding, having already done the heavy lifting, can't do the last mile. Industry mainly provides access to the scalable means of production for tinkering, which can be owned by anyone, not just industrialists.
- 533474 6y agoDo you mean healthy profit margins?...because I'd rather prefer a combination of big profits, state subsidies and healthy competition than a monopolised/oligopolised market
- tehjoker 6y agoUnfortunately, I did mean monopoly profits. In a non-monopoly situation, competition exists which forces market participants to constantly reduce costs and compete on quality or price. Eventually, a single or few participants will be left standing as the others fail and the the remaining ones engage in a process of buying their supplies and workers at discount prices. This is not an environment that supports long term thinking. There might be an exception here and there, but there will be some structural reason why long term planning is possible (such as competition not being able to step on each others toes). It's not true in the general case.