"You can list the vital ones and imagine that any deregulation will go after them first but that's isn't a very reasonable argument even if it might work a a matter of rhetoric."<<
...As for the last sentence, it obviously doesn't relate to anything I have said, and sort of looks like a straw man argument. I'll just leave it at that.
Really? What about - "it teaches us that they will pollute and take no responsibility for it, sell defective and/or dangerous products and cover it up, and cheat less powerful companies and people if they can get away with it."
Regulations against defective dangerous products, and massive environmental damage, and fraud, all strike me as being in the range from "worth the costs" to "vital". You can have quite extensive deregulation without effecting that range.
Let's get back to the idea of a government sponsored initiative to reduce oil consumption by supporting R&D and the development of whatever infrastructures are necessary to ensure efficient distribution.
The basic research is to a large extent done, but to the extent it is not, I don't oppose government involvement. Also while a lot of it is done, it will never be completely done, new ideas and new theories and new technologies come along all the time so there is always more basic research to be done, and thus arguably always a role for government.
As to product development and infrastructure, I believe they should be paid for by the companies who will sell the product. It won't happen quickly but it will happen. The public sector can force quicker change than what would happen from normal market forces but often such forced change is a bad idea. It either happens to fast to be done at a reasonable cost (subsidies don't reduce the cost they just pass it on to other people, TANSTAAFL), and you can also get sub-optimal solutions forced in to place as the government chooses winners to fund, subsidize or mandate.
Once again, I offer the Moon Race of the sixties as an example of the government's ability to marshall resources and manifest cooperation to reach a stated goal.
That's the perfect example of an activity for government, if it is to be done at all. No profit in it, so its not going to happen from the private sector. Or at least not for a long time until its either cheap enough that it can be done on a whim or for publicity, or some way to make a profit for it is found.
An argument can be made that it shouldn't have been done. I'm going to present this argument without really totally supporting it. I don't think it is false or unreasonable, but it it isn't obviously completely true either. The asserted specific facts are true or at least mostly true, but at least part of it relies on conjecture or subjective values, that I don't think are unreasonable, but also that I'm not entirely willing to endorse.
The moon landings created little direct return. The infrastructure for the moon landings is almost all gone. Science benefited from having moon rocks and close observations, but all those billions of dollars (and dollars from the 60s not today's dollars) could have produced more scientific return in other ways.
(I think all of that is true. The argument continues but with less certain premises. Here is the challenge-able conjecture)
Technology spin-offs where very useful, but spending the same amount in the private sector or on other government projects could also have created at least as much useful technology, or it could have created other benefits as important as the technological spin-offs. Slower development of more efficient and durable space infrastructure would have allowed us to be further along in accessing and using space, than rush to make a statement by getting to the moon quickly)
(And here is the subjective values part)
The political and inspirational boost by the moon landings was less important than the concrete benefits that could have been achieved from a slower space program combined with spending the rest of the money on other government priorities and/or leaving it in the private sector. |
