
The entrepreneurial state – government role in creating innovative businesses - nabla9
https://www.economist.com/business/2013/08/31/the-entrepreneurial-state
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It is true that the innovations of silicon valley are rooted in government
(mostly military) sponsored research going back to at least WW2, but the idea
that we should therefore credit the government as some kind of "innovation
driver" is totally wrong. Innovation comes from setting daring goals and
tackling hard problems (the "Grand Challenge" theory of innovation). The
government is incapable of directly innovating because it usually has no grand
challenge, no overarching unity of vision. This is by design: the government
exists to "make our collective lives better" but no one agrees on what this
means so the government cannot do very much.

On rare occasions, our collective opinion coagulates around a consensus that
enables a kind of societal grand challenge from which remarkable innovations
spring forth, for example WW2 and then the Space Race. Certainly the
government (mostly the military) has an important role to play in such times.
But that situation is the exception, not the rule, and we don't have that
right now. At present, there are only three things that governments can do to
spur innovation: increase military spending, fund academic research and remove
legal and financial barriers to entry for new ventures.

