Given the upsurge of interest in corporate welfare from left, right and center, can we distinguish industrial policy (i.e. gov't support for R&D, planning, patient investing and infrastructure) from welfare for the rich type schemes? The slash-and-burn-all-gov't-funding bandwagon seems a dangerous one to jump on uncritically. It's hard to imagine a form of industrial policy which does not involve some form of subsidy, but it also seems to me to carve some space for a regulatory agenda and a quid pro quo arena where corporations are in some way accountable to society and obligated to workers, consumers and communities. Maybe the idea of industrial policy is dead in the water in the U.S., but I have to think twice before jumping in bed with the CATO Institute.
