Ernie: That is a very good point. Two replies-- ( 1 ) Some things simply cannot be done without massive capital --beyond the resources of even the largest private firms The Interstate, for example. Boulder Dam might be another, or TVA. Obviously the Moon program of the 60s / early 70s. This being the case, where does Libertarian philosophy fit in ? ( 2 ) Maybe the best approach might be a combination of gvt and pvt like massive RR expansion in the 19th century. No way that pvt industry could have done it alone, but also a truism that it was best that the program was designed to further pvt business. This also raises the same question about Libertarian philosophy, David's usual point is very well taken, namely, Big Gvt and, for sure, a good chance for corruption and waste. But is that necessary, does it always happen ? No. It surely did in the 19th century, but no sign of that for Boulder Dam or NASA. Granted, the Democratic Party of today gives no-one much confidence, and the Republicans aren't much better. But maybe the solution is to think back to Eisenhower era, since the Interstate could hardly have been built except with bi-partisan support That is --why did this occur to me? must be a reason-- a class of optimal solutions necessarily will have RC character. As for the Chinese, seems to me that this is somewhat similar to the RR example. Even if it partly fails, there ought to be tangible results, if not everything they wanted, all kinds of goodies. After all, there are just two serious issues, infrastructure and maxi-batteries which still aren't what everyone wants. Yet batteries are far better than a generation ago. The Japanese were working against too many variables, and didn't have nearly the software human capital needed. BTW, first infrastructure of electric cars in the USA, think it is the Big Island of Hawaii, now under development. Billy In a message dated 9/26/2010 1:35:05 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Hi Billy, Sent from my iPhone On Sep 26, 2010, at 10:13, [email protected] wrote: > China is developing its electric car industry using the power of state capitalism. > The question is : How can America compete ? To do this requires multi-billions > in investment. For the life of me, I don't see where the libertarian model of economics > is relevant. Just thought I'd make this observation. The question oils whether this is more like our moon shot or the 1980s Japanese investment in artificial intelligence? The risk in big audacious programs is that you chase a mirage and never produce anything workable. E = -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
