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If the government is bad (or simply worse than the free market) at developing new industries, should it stay out of the business of giving subsidies to groundbr

If the government is bad (or simply worse than the free market) at developing new industries, should it stay out of the business of giving subsidies to groundbreaking companies? Should this be left to chance? I suppose a more direct question is this: should we just sit it out and wait for green tech to be right? (Or for oil to be so costly that any alternative is better?) What about the numerous areas in which government investment/research has paid off (eg. computing)? Could or should the free market today replace this type of public investment? Just curious.

protomyth 14y ago
Yep, it probably should. Subsidies are just tax breaks in a different form. If the government really wants to get something, it should offer a contract to the first who can provide it. This worked in a couple of DoD instances and worked in civilian life with the XPrize. Funding individual companies is not the way. As to green tech, if it does not become more cost effective and as easy / easier to deploy than current energy generation, we have lost anyway. China and India are following the path the 1st world took (coal / oil). I expect the rest of the 3rd world to do the same. Nothing short of force will stop that.