kfl%mx.lcs.mit.edu@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU (07/29/86)
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Date: Thu, 17 Jul 86 02:19:25 EDT
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <KFL%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Re: concerning Technology (a Lengthy flame)
To: steven@LL-XN.ARPA
cc: KIN%MX.LCS.MIT.EDU@MC.LCS.MIT.EDU
From: steven@ll-xn.ARPA (Steven Lee)
Some other things which seem uneconomical in the free market:
A lot of things are not invested in by individuals and private
companies precisely because the government is paying.
space exploration
Is a good example. Private companies are very interested now. And
why not? Space exploration has payed for itself several times over
already, from communications satellites alone.
Would they have been interested in the beginning, had government not
stepped in? Who can say? But sailing ships and steamships and
airplanes were developed and operated by private companies. These
were often as expensive, and far more dangerous, than space
exploration is today.
eradication of small pox
I am not so sure of that. I can see a consortium of insurance
companies investing in research in order to reduce their costs when
their clients get smallpox. Anyhow, Jenner, who developed the
smallpox innoculation, did not have any government funding.
the first computers
Well, the first major computer client was DoD. Much of the early
work (and much of the recent work) was done to meet their
requirements. But the work itself was not done by the government.
The first computer was built at a university. As far as I know it had
no federal funding.
the American Civil War
I can't think of too many privately financed wars. Are you implying
we would be worse off if the war between the states had never
happened?
and some things which apparently are not:
assassination
I think government has the edge here.
a few dozen different brands of toilet paper.
Oh, come on!
One weakness of a free market is that it's dumb: it has difficulty
planning ahead.
Governments don't?
Projects which require large startup captial are hard to fund,
especially if time to profitability is on the order of a human
lifetime or more.
Well, anyone who thinks it's worthwhile is free to invest in it. If
few people do so, then probably few people thought it was worth doing.
I can't blame them. Technology is moving so quickly that such a
project would have a very high probabilty of being a total flop. For
instance what if someone had financed a grid of coaxial cables across
the US to compete with the phone company? They would be feeling quite
foolish today, now that a relatively cheap (!) satellite can
outperform their multibillion dollar network of cables. There are
many other examples.
Another drawback is the free market's lack of interest in general
welfare.
What is made is what people want to pay for. If there is more
market for scented toilet paper than for cultural TV shows, or if
there is greater demand for cigaretts than for a cure for cancer,
those are what get produced.
Yes, there are alot of scientists and engineers who, if brought
together and funded, could implement safe, clean, maybe even
inexpensive ways of providing abundant energy. (I consider myself
one.)
The government has been funding a fusion program for 30 years. So
far, still no fusion. Nixon declared a war on cancer. Billions of
federal dollars have been spent prosecuting this war every year.
Still no victory in sight. Of the government run city buses, the less
said the better. Nobody takes one if there is any alternative.
Dozens of companies have sprung up to deliver letters and packages.
How can they hope to compete given that the USPS has had a 200 year
head start and is subsidized? And I would not dream of riding
Amtrack.
I once thought that NASA was an exception to the rule that anything
the government runs turns to ashes. Sadly, I was mistaken.
Private companies demand results. And get them, or go out of
business, only to be replaced by several new companies. Founding
one's own company is the American dream. Working as a bureaucrat is
not.
Russia has no shortage of brilliant people. And no shortage of
government programs that bring them together. So why don't we hear of
anything useful coming from all this? We hear of a lot of neat new
stuff in Japan, where the per capita government budget is much less
than in the US. Coincidence?
Who is going to find them, bring them together and pay them--and
*why*?
My argument that government should not be running such things is NOT
based mainly on the record of who gets things done more efficiently,
though it could be.
It is based on the fact that money used to pay for government
programs is coerced from people. Individuals and voluntary groups
lose control over how the money is to be used. This is both immoral
and inefficient. It is also an insult to everyone asked to pay taxes,
that a bunch of bureaucrats who can't even balance a budget have a
better idea how their money should be spent that they do.
Wealth is created by individuals and voluntary groups of
individuals. Wealth is not created by governments. Some people are
confused by the fact that wealth is represented by money printed by
the government, and with 'U.S.A.' written all over it. Confused into
somehow thinking that all money really belongs to the government and
is just on loan to individuals.
Look at it this way. If you were to bake ten cookies, or paint ten
paintings, or build ten CD players, what right does anyone have to
take three of them? Or any of them? I am speaking of wealth that you
created, from scratch, that would never have existed had you not
created it.
The recent American government (last quarter century) has bet
primarily on fission. Note, however, that it has funded virtually
all the fusion experimentation in the US, and probably a majority
of the solar energy research, not to mention hydroelectric
research and implementation (remember TVA), MHD, geothermal, and a
variety of lesser know ideas.
And we all know what a sorry or nonexistant state each of these is
in, except hydroelectric, which was NOT developed by the government.
Without such non-free market funding, where would we be?
Possibly much further along, and possibly the unproductive avenues
of investigation would be dropped. I am not saying that corporations
have any kind of crystal ball, but their track record has always been
much better than any government's, and for well understood reasons.
And when, WHEN, world oil and gas production peaks and the real
energy crisis begins (I guess 1990's),
Yes, it has always been ten to twenty years away, at least since the
1850s.
HOW long would it take the free market to respond if it had to
start from scratch: research, wild theories, experiments, test
designs, failures, successes, ... the whole bit.
It doesn't have to. It has already done so. Gasoline, fuel oil,
methane, and lubricants can be made out of plants or coal. This is
more expensive than petroleum refining, which is why it's not done
that way now. But the technology is all in place to take over
whenever the oil gets more expensive than it is now. Why do you think
OPEC isn't daring to raise the price?
I don't know about oil, but there is one theory that there is
thousands of times the natural gas anyone thought there was, you just
have to dig deeper for it.
Why do humans operate by the rule: enjoy now, pay later? Simple.
Individuals expect to die ... so they may
NOT have to pay. Organizations have yet to emerge as thoughtfully
sentient creatures.
Companies can outlast the longest lived people. Some companies are
at least 900 years old. I don't think they got that way by employing
that rule. Some individuals do, much to their detriment. The federal
governmnet clearly does. No corporation has ever run up a two
trillion dollar debt. Certainly some companies can be short sighted.
But few are as short sighted as government, which only looks ahead to
the next election.
A corporate director may be on the board for 40 years or more. And
he wishes his stock to do well so his son can take over a wealthier
company. No US president serves anything close to 40 years, nor does
he worry that the opposition party might have a tough time of it after
the next election. Just look at what Roosevelt saddled future
generations with!
And stop complaining about how much better it was 50, 100, or 150
years ago. It was also worse, too.
Did I do this? Not me. I wouldn't trade the 1980s for any prior
decade.
...Keith
[ I must take exception to Keith's remark about Amtrack. I have
ridden the rails a number of times recently, and I have found the
trains clean, spacious, and staffed by courteous people. In my
opinion it is a very pleasant way to travel. Also, please correct me
if I'm incorrect, but weren't most of the large hydroelectric
"applications" projects (TVA leaps to mind, and Hoover Dam) government
funded? -CWM]
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