决战1010精英组Economist阅读——Finn分贴

kingwyf87UID：2457409

New Labour






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★原文链接★ http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/169
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kingwyf87UID：2457409

词汇 短语 句子 例证 观点 注释

The opposition's closing remarks

Let's talk about Google. Amar Bhidé questions government's role.

Google's founders can speak for themselves. In 1998, Sergey Brin and Larry Page published a paper that begins: "In this paper, we present Google, a prototype of a large-scale search engine…" At page 16, Brin and Page write that their research was "supported by the National Science Foundation", with funding "also provided by DARPA and NASA". All three are government agencies. The paper makes for fascinating reading, for reasons related and unrelated to this debate.

Prof. Bhidé invokes Isaac Newton and other great figures from history, asserting that none received government grants. Yes, an apple tree may have been sufficient infrastructure for scientific discovery in the 17th century. Today, a linear accelerator is needed in some fields. Satellites and supercomputers are needed in others. Government funding—beyond the "least" amount possible—makes advances in those fields much more likely.

Furthermore, no one is arguing that all innovation depends on government funding. Knowledge has certainly been created without government support. The motion asks, instead, whether "innovation works best when government does least". The answer is no, because government has unique capabilities and a full toolbox for helping spur the innovative process.

Prof. Bhidé's most interesting argument involves Minitel, the French government-owned monopoly that launched an online service in the early 1980s, before the World Wide Web. Minitel was a success at first, providing French customers with online services unavailable to Americans at the time. Then it floundered (挣扎; 错乱地做事) in the 1990s, in the face of competition from the internet.

However, Prof. Bhidé draws the wrong lesson from this tale. Minitel was a monopoly. Its story stands mainly for the proposition that monopolies, public or private, do not innovate well. For example AT&T, a private telephone monopoly in the United States, once required its customers to use rotary phones leased from the company. Customers had two options: white or black. Then starting in 1968, other companies were allowed to compete in this market. Not only did the types of phones available increase dramatically, but innovative devices such as modems emerged.

And who has an important role in breaking up monopolies, thereby unleashing innovation? The government. Let us hope the government doesn't do the "least" when it comes to trust-busting.

The economic case for innovation is overwhelming. Innovation plays a central role in productivity growth and wealth creation. How can government best promote it?

First, by protecting property rights. Intellectual property protection and a stable legal system are the bedrock (岩床; 基础; 根底) on which much innovation rests. If we were committed to government doing only the "least", we would stop here.

But government can do much more. How else can government help?

Second, by investing in education. An educated citizenry is the fertile soil from which innovation grows. As Prof. Bhidé correctly argued in his opening statement, this means training young people not just in math, but also in how to think independently and work collaboratively. Providing this education is a classic government function, one for which there are outsized benefits from government spending.

Third, by investing in basic research. For many research tasks, the payout is too long, benefits too dispersed and the scale too large for the private sector. When government steps in, returns can be huge. In the 1980s, for example, the US Department of Energy supported research into recovering natural gas from shale formations. Few companies were interested. But that research led to innovations that are now transforming the natural gas sector in the United States and around the world.

Fourth, by ensuring that social returns are reflected in investment decisions. Public companies have fiduciary (受托的，信托的) responsibilities to their shareholders. In most cases their primary mission is not to clean the air, prevent climate disruption or pursue other public objectives. Governments have a responsibility to promote the public interest, steering capital toward innovations with high social returns.


Fifth, by protecting public safety, giving consumers the confidence to try innovative products. We expect our vehicles, food and pharmaceuticals (药品，成药) to be safe and criticise government regulators if they fail to detect problems. This standard-setting role not only protects the public, it promotes innovation by giving consumers confidence in innovative products.

Sixth, by providing consumers with reliable information. Seventh, by purchasing output from innovators, helping innovative products scale. Eighth, by building infrastructure on which innovators depend (such as interstate highways and electric transmission grids). The list goes on.

Will government sometimes make mistakes? Of course. So does the private sector. Innovation is about taking risks. There may be times when government should do less, but there will never be a time when it should do the "least". Government has unique and powerful abilities to promote innovation. We should recognise and embrace them.

It has been almost 45 years since Bob Taylor first convinced his bosses at DARPA, a government agency, to invest in a new idea for computer communications. That led to the internet and, eventually, to The Economist online. It led to the clever managers of this site combining a classic debate format with 21st-century technologies and, in turn, to our discussion today. Many thanks to The Economist, to Prof. Bhidé and especially to all of you reading this dialogue.

kingwyf87UID：2457409

词汇 短语 句子 例证 观点 注释

The proposer's closing remarks

Minimal government does not equal no government or even government of unchanging size. New technologies, as I argued in my opening statement, often demand new rules. Nevertheless, a minimising, no more than necessary standard, is crucial in maintaining the widespread, decentralised innovation that undergirds (加强; 巩固...的底部) our prosperity.

Many who oppose the standard, such as David Sandalow, seem to argue that if some government is good then a lot must be great. For instance, they extrapolate (推断; 外推) from the value of the government's role in providing a high-quality basic education for all to demand tax subsidies for the advanced training of a few in fields that they somehow know will have large social returns.

They see no evidence of governmental overreach in California's soaring unemployment and empty public coffers. California's government does not spend too much or do too much; it is just pesky (麻烦的, 讨厌的) laws passed by ornery (脾气坏的，故意刁难的) voters that prevent it from raising the taxes it needs, suggests Mr Sandalow.

But if California has it right, then governments in most other states must be too small. Why then has California chronically lagged behind in employment and income growth, long before the current crisis?

The current crisis itself owes much to governmental overreach. Politicians from both parties used the tax code and loan guarantees to pump up (把...打足气; 把...加大) the construction industry and housing prices, drawing resources away from innovators in other sectors and turning those who could not afford it into reckless speculators. The boom was channelled through securities issued by two governmental agencies, marginalising traditional decentralised lending by loan officers.

Nearly 70 years ago, Friedrich Hayek pinpointed why centralised control was an economic dead-end. The decision of what to plant and when was best left to farmers who knew their soil and local weather conditions. The best judge of the product mix of an industrial enterprise was the person who was in constant touch with customers. Central planners who thought they knew better, didn't. Indeed the inability of planners to match the supply and demand for the most basic goods helped bring down the Soviet Union.

Now comes the alternative energy and battery brigade, which is confident that it can make top-down plans work with advanced and dynamic technologies. Mr Sandalow, for instance, has offered a detailed plan to end the United States' oil addiction. This is certainly a worthwhile goal both on national security grounds and in light of the grave risks of global warming. The plan sensibly proposes a gasoline/petrol tax. Unfortunately it does not stop there; that would be too minimalistic. The plan, for instance, proposes an $8,000 tax credit for buying plug-in hybrids, a ten-year extension of the ethanol tax credit and (truly) a federal battery guarantee corporation, which would underwrite insurance on batteries used in hybrid vehicles.

Now plug-in hybrids have become popular in recent years—Mr Sandalow reportedly owns one too—but before that few experts thought they held any promise. All-electric was supposed to be the technology of the future. The auto industry more or less stumbled into hybrids by chance. And who can tell whether plug-ins are really the answer? Could they be like Alta Vista's search engine to some Google-like technology that a couple of graduate students might be hacking away on? And if we don't know, why entrench plug-ins?

What about my favoured form of transportation, bicycles? They are even greener than plug-in hybrids, especially the old-fashioned non-battery-enhanced kind. A tax credit would increase ridership (and I would trade in my clunker). Better tyre and gear technologies and bicycle pumps might help too, so why not subsidise that research?

There is in fact no limit to the number of ways in which individuals and businesses could reduce the consumption of fossil fuels: reducing commuting distances, smaller homes, better insulation, sweaters and solar panels to name just a few. In the minimalist view, what we need is a simple, even-handed incentive, such as a gasoline/petrol or carbon tax, leaving specific choices to those best positioned to make them. Setting up a Soviet-style apparatus to select and promote a particular set of solutions is not the answer.

And more than technical efficiency, the right mix of energy conservation choices is at stake.

The government has a unique capacity to demand compliance. We must all pay taxes, send our children to school and obey traffic laws. Preserving the legitimacy of its coercive (强制的，强压的，强迫的) powers, however, requires the government to limit its use to situations where the public interest is clear and widespread support has been secured. This does not preclude the use of public funds for investments whose payoffs are intangible and long-term, in museums, public art or the study of dark matter. But taxpayers whose money is used to pay must be persuaded of the merits of such investments. Obviously this imposes limits on what is financed from the public purse.

Conversely, expansive interventions (插入, 调停, 介入) unilaterally (单方面地) decided by experts pervert incentives in fundamental ways. Americans are unusually idealistic and optimistic, believing that that the game is not stacked in favour of the powerful. This belief encourages the pursuit of initiatives that contribute to the common good rather than the pursuit of favours and rents.

To sustain these beliefs, people must see their government play the role of an even-handed referee rather than be a dispenser of rewards or even a judge of economic merit or contribution. Picking winners—this technology or that developer—which is an inevitable consequence of expansive schemes such as Mr Sandalow's, makes us all losers.

For the record, Mr Sandalow's asserts that I am "flat out wrong in asserting that GDP per head in Israel is lower than in Cyprus or Slovenia". The very first item that comes up in a Google search of "per capita/head GDP" is a Wikipedia page. The first column of data on this page contains the IMF's 2009 estimates of GDP per head (adjusted, as is conventional, by purchasing power parity). Cyprus ranks 26th from the top on the list, Slovenia 30th and Israel 31st.

kingwyf87UID：2457409

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        ★ Closing Statements ★

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词汇 短语 句子 例证 观点 注释

The moderator's closing remarks

Our debate on the government's role in innovation is drawing to a close, and it is running neck and neck (并驾齐驱). The side in favour of the motion started off on the back foot, but has gained enough ground to keep this an unusually close affair. The side opposite has lost a bit of the initial starting advantage, but remains just as well positioned to pass the post first. Both debaters have ginned up their final arguments in hopes of emerging the winner.

Amar Bhidé, arguing in favour of the proposition, insists that "a minimising, no more than necessary standard, is crucial in maintaining widespread, decentralised innovation". He brings out the big guns, invoking the hero of free marketers ("Friedrich Hayek pinpointed why centralised control was an economic dead end") and the bête noire of freedom during the last century (the Soviet Union). Quirkily, he also takes aim again at the side opposite's support for advanced battery technologies, demanding to know when his uber-green bicycle is going to earn him government subsidies.

Arguing against the motion, David Sandalow offers a closing statement that is sure to please fans of government-supported innovation. With as much gusto ( 爱好, 由衷的高兴, 嗜好) as his rival mustered up (鼓起勇气) for attacking batteries, he jumps on the Google example cited earlier by his opponent. Mr Sandalow goes back to original writings by the founders of the firm to show that, in fact, this paragon of seeming free-market virtue in fact got government money from several sources during its early uncertain days. Government, he insists, "has unique capabilities and a full toolbox for helping spur the innovative process". It must, he suggests, steer money towards innovations that serve social goals.

The hour is late, but the clouds have cleared. You must now choose which good guru you will follow on the innovation trail. Cast your vote now, as this debate promises to be a nail biter.

kingwyf87UID：2457409

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     ★ Audience participation ★

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词汇 短语 句子 例证 观点 注释


Featured guest

The proposition on the table carries for me some of the flavour of a medieval theological debate. On the one extreme are those who invoke an invisible market hand that should rule and generate innovations free of interference from government. On the other hand are those who look to knowledgeable, action-oriented government stakeholders to address every one of society's ills.

The truth as always lies somewhere in the middle. And to get at the truth, it is important to distinguish between what I would call a dictionary or enterprise definition of innovation, creativity applied to a purpose to realise value, and what I have recently taken to call "large-scale" innovation, new sources of societal value that emerge from the blended capabilities of public, private and NGO sectors as well as civil society.

We would not want government telling the inventor in their garage what to do (the enterprise model of innovation). However, in my view, government cannot help being involved in innovation at a large scale. In every country I am aware of, government regulates health care, provides for the national defence, influences education policy and pursues societal moonshots—both literally and figuratively (比喻地; 象征性地).

As an example, a national security agenda taken as a whole requires continuous innovation (we need to be smarter/faster than the other guy). Yet simply picking over the fruits of invisible-hand, market-driven innovation might not have led to the development of stealth technology, Kevlar or even the internet, all fruits from the efforts of DARPA, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.

The case of DARPA, which is a part of the US federal government, is instructive (有益的; 教育性的) because its purpose is to champion the kind of long-range, higher-risk innovation initiatives that might lead to game-changers. One assumption at the heart of DARPA's raison d'etre (<法>存在的目的或理由) is that the government mainstream, left entirely to its own devices, might not generate relevant innovation for a variety of reasons (bureaucracy, speed or lack thereof, lack of early-stage funding, inability to go outside its own mindset). The other guiding assumption behind DARPA is that some kind of transmission system with seed investment and talent-scouting capability is needed to identify and bridge with promising technologies and talents outside the national security community.

My larger point should now be clear. Government has an inevitable role in shaping innovation. At the same time, we would be right not to trust omniscient technocrats who believe they are the sole arbiters of what is worth putting on the agenda. Top-down, ivory-tower government is not what I am talking about: it is government's role in innovation. Modern history is replete ( 装满的, 充分的, 充满的) with expensive examples of how governments have got it wrong. Think Japan and supercomputers, for example.

I believe that government's appropriate role in innovation is rather as a catalyst(触媒剂; 催化剂), a platform and a convener (召集人)to enable collaboration (合作;共同研究) among a range of stakeholders from the public, private, NGO and societal sectors. The advent of web 2.0 is a great enabler in fostering such collaboration with multiple vectors: bottom up, top down, inside out, outside in. Government also has a role in identifying the purposes to which innovation should be applied, creating the strategy for addressing them and providing resources as needed. And this, parenthetically (顺便地说，作为插句), is why it is important for America to have a national innovation strategy, not as a warmed up, top-down version of industrial policy, but as a living, breathing strategic conversation among stakeholders to determine priorities, generate road maps and requirements, and create accountability.

The final point about government's inevitable role in innovation again returns to the optics of the large scale. Many of today's emerging waves of innovation—synthetic biology, alternative energy, health care informatics—will not be addressed by a few Silicon Valley venture capitalists making a few $5 million investments in the ventures of a few passionate entrepreneurs. Rather, they require bets of considerable size across a spectrum of opportunity. This is particularly true when one thinks about a next generation of societal services—health care and education, for example—that consume a significant portion of GDP and that require societal capabilities for prototyping and experimentation, research funding, large amounts of risk capital, human capital strategies and an enabling regulatory environment to progress. Government is everywhere to be seen in this picture, but as a partner, not a dictator.

kingwyf87UID：2457409

词汇 短语 句子 例证 观点 注释

The opposition's rebuttal remarks

In his defence of the notion that government should do "least", Amar Bhidé states his support for carbon taxes, emissions rules, pollution rules more broadly, vehicle inspections, air traffic control, aircraft certification, spectrum regulation and antitrust laws. He notes that construction of the US interstate (州际公路) highway system (one of the largest government projects of modern times by some metrics(指标))was a boon to the US economy.

Professor Bhidé and I have common ground.

We have disagreements, to be sure, which I will come to in a moment. But before doing so, it is worth pausing for a moment on the motion, which asks whether "innovation works best when government does least". I applaud Professor Bhidé's recognition of the many benefits government provides, yet note that this might be seen to sit oddly with his call for minimal government.

In fact this is quite typical. Words criticising government seem often to be combined with grateful acceptance of government services. In the United States, this regular part of the political dialogue may have reached its zenith (顶点, 天顶, 顶峰) last summer when a man at a town hall meeting in South Carolina told his Congressman to "keep your government hands off my Medicare". Now to be 100% clear, I am not ascribing such views or confusion to Professor Bhidé. But I note that—especially in the United States—there is a deep cultural tendency to denigrate government even as government's many benefits are routinely enjoyed.

This is not harmless. When government is repeatedly cast as the problem without celebrating its many contributions, support for government erodes. Over time, the ability of government to deliver benefits withers (枯萎, 感到羞愧, 衰退; 使凋谢, 使畏缩, 使消亡). Services that are best or even uniquely provided by government are abandoned. California's public schools, for example, have slid in the past several decades from one of the nation's best to among its worst, the victim of severe limits on the ability of local governments in the state to raise funds for this classic governmental function.

This brings us to Professor Bhidé's argument. He notes that, despite Silicon Valley's high-tech prowess (英勇, 超凡技术, 勇敢), "the State of California pays its bills in IOUs.". Well, yes, but not because Silicon Valley entrepreneurs failed to create jobs or improve the quality of life, but because state laws limiting the ability of the people of California to fund their government collided (碰撞, 抵触, 互撞) with a deep recession and expectations from those same people for continued government services.

Professor Bhidé is on equally shaky ground in his assertions regarding Israel (often praised for its innovation culture) and neighbouring countries. He is wrong in asserting that GDP per head in Israel is lower than in Cyprus or Slovenia, at least according to WTO figures. But more to the point, innovation is of course just one determinant of GDP.

Countries have different comparative advantages, including location, resource wealth and stable legal systems. They may (and often do) adopt growth-limiting policies unrelated to innovation. After flourishing in the 1980s thanks in part to innovations in its manufacturing sector, Japan floundered in the 1990s due in part to problems in its financial sector. Yet the benefits of those innovations were still very real.

A substantial body of economic literature demonstrates that innovation is correlated with GDP growth. Indeed for his work on this topic, Robert Solow won the Nobel Prize. Solow's work suggests that innovation is more important to GDP growth than capital accumulation or increases in the labour market. If governments have it within their power to enhance the rate of innovation, the benefits of doing so would be huge.

And they do. Classic government functions such as basic research, education and patent protection are central to innovation. Would innovation "work best" with less of such things? Quite the contrary.

Government funding of basic research led to the creation of the internet, one of the greatest sources of innovation of all time. Government funding led to DNA mapping, a breakthrough revolutionising medicine. Government funding led to countless other advances in decades past, and could lead to many more in decades to come. Yet that will depend on adequate budgets. It will depend, crucially, on political support. It will depend on government doing more than the "least" to support innovation.

In his essay, Professor Bhidé takes particular aim at government funding for batteries. In one respect, this is tangential to the main argument. One could easily believe that government programmes to promote development and deployment of advanced batteries are misguided, yet agree that innovation overall deserves strong government support. But I happen to believe there is a strong case for government work on batteries, so will take this opportunity to explain why.

Modern energy systems are in many ways a marvel. Yet they impose social costs, which could be reduced by cutting pollution from electricity generation and diversifying the fuel mix in vehicles. Better energy storage technologies would help with both objectives.

Solar and wind power, for example, can help cut pollution. Yet those technologies are limited by their intermittency: they produce no power when the wind stops blowing or day turns to night. Advances in energy storage could help overcome these problems.

Electric vehicles can help diversify the fuel mix in transport. Yet their advance is limited by high costs and short driving range. Better batteries are the solution.

Government could simply stand back, letting the market decide whether to invest in advances in energy storage. But the market does not recognise the social costs from pollution. It won't fund basic research in adequate amounts. It won't educate children and university students, who form the next generation of innovators. Government is essential to overcome these problems—and more.

What is government's role? To fund basic research. To educate the citizenry. To establish patent protection, helping ensure adequate incentives for invention. To set the regulatory framework, so externalities such as those created by pollution are incorporated into market decisions. To help technologies facing sunk-cost competitors get to market. To guide innovation toward socially beneficial purposes.

For innovation to work best, government needs to do much more than the "least". It must bring its many strengths to the field of play. We should recognise and embrace government's role in innovation.

kingwyf87UID：2457409

词汇 短语 句子 例证 观点 注释

The proposer's rebuttal remarks

Mr Sandalow's assertion that Google's search engine "grew directly from government funding" is puzzling. I was once a satisfied user of Alta Vista search. In 1999 I switched to Google mainly because its interface was much cleaner and to some degree its results were better related to my queries. In what way did the government fund the idea of the cleaner interface? And as my friend Jim Manzi, a contributing editor at National Review, and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute puts it, which Federal Department of Critical Insight caused Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin to think about the "page rank" algorithm?

The Google case in fact underlines the importance of decentralised innovation that is not directed by the government. Alta Vista was on the surface a perfectly satisfactory search engine. Two graduate students figured out on their own how to make it better in aesthetic (美学的; 艺术的; 美的; 审美的) and non-technical ways without having to curry favour (求宠(于人), 拍(人)马屁) with funding agencies.

Mr Sandalow is on firmer ground in pointing out that the internet evolved from the Pentagon-funded ARPAnet. But think of France's grand Minitel scheme. Starting in 1982, the state-owned telephone company gave away millions of free Minitel terminals, which could be used to make online purchases and train reservations, trade stocks, look up phone numbers and chat. Just like the internet. Except it wasn't quite as good or versatile. Worse, Minitel held back the adoption of the internet and France's entry into the information age, as Lionel Jospin, French prime minister, pointed out in 1997. Yet by then Minitel had acquired a life of its own: in 2000 France Telecom poured money as never before into a publicity campaign to promote a service widely recognised to be obsolete.

What accounts for the difference between the success of the internet and the failure of Minitel? It seems unlikely that it is because the French are worse at managing large publicly funded projects. Compared with the Train à Grande Vitesse (TGV), Amtrak's Acela is a bad dream.

It could be bad luck, since all innovative projects are a gamble. But then do we want the government to be gambling with taxpayers' money? Should we have a few decision-makers with no skin in the game placing bets on their favoured technologies rather than many independent innovators staking their time and money on a chance that their offering will beat the status quo (现状)?

The difference between ARPAnet's and Minitel's ambitions also is noteworthy (值得注目的, 显著的). ARPAnet was not a grandiose (宏伟的, 堂皇的, 宏大的) scheme to create a ubiquitous (到处存在的; 普遍存在的) national network. Rather the project involved a small number of players and was undertaken to advance the Pentagon's mission. Very likely this helped limit the risks of overreach.

Now of course the Pentagon's mission of ensuring national security is vital and cannot be outsourced (外包) to private enterprise. And technology is a paramount (最重要的, 至上的, 最高的) ingredient of modern defence. It is inevitable, therefore, that the Pentagon is an important high-tech buyer and (like any large customer) helps shape the new technologies it wants. Which is as it should be, and not at all inconsistent with the principle of limited government. Conversely debacles like Minitel are likely to occur when governmental bodies go beyond their assigned, essential roles.

And although ARPAnet's contribution was valuable, it is far from certain that without Pentagon funding, there would have been no internet. The telephone network was in its time every bit as revolutionary. Yet Alexander Bell invented the telephone and Theodore Vail created a nearly universal nationwide network with no military or other developmental grants. Similarly Thomas Edison became the most prodigious (很大的, 异常的, 惊人的) inventor in American history without a receiving penny in research subsidies.

History also shows that unlike say national defence or air traffic control, a significant governmental role is not essential even for fundamental research. Revolutionary advances occurred even when government funding for scientific research was minimal. Darwin's research on evolution, Michael Faraday's work on electromagnetism and electro-chemistry, Newton's discoveries of calculus and the laws of motion were all done without government grants. In 1905 Albert Einstein produced four path-breaking papers—on the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity and the equivalence of matter and energy—while employed as an examiner at the Swiss patent office.

A common argument made in favour of government subsidies for fundamental research is that contributions that the likes or Darwin, Faraday, Newton and Einstein might make on their own are not enough. Mr Sandalow asserts, for instance, that the private sector naturally under-invests in fundamental research because profit-seeking businesses cannot fully capture the returns. First off, the private sector is not all for-profit. A great deal of basic research is done through private resources (such as foundations) that do not seek to maximise financial return.

And who is to say how much and what kind of investment in basic research is right? There is a vast range of valuable knowledge whose returns accrue more to society as a whole than to the producers of the knowledge. In medicine, creating routines to ensure that surgeons wash their hands before they operate is no less valuable a public good than decoding the genome. IBM's development of a professional sales process, which was then adopted throughout the high-tech industry, was as vital to the diffusion of information technology as the discovery of the transistor principle. Virtually every day I turn to the internet to learn about how to solve computer problems that other users have discovered and share it at no charge.

Of course these different kinds of knowledge are rarely perfectly in balance. Sometimes fundamental science runs ahead of concrete user-generated knowledge, for instance, and sometimes it is the other way round. But that is not an argument for turning to government. If the brightest and the best economists at the Fed continue to assert that a large nationwide housing bubble was unrecognisable, which government agency can we charge with identifying and correcting these subtle (微妙的, 不可思议的, 难捉摸的; 微微的; 纤细的; 隐约的) knowledge imbalances? Why not trust the autonomous, competing judgements of for- and not-for profit innovators seeking fame, fortune or excitement while the government focuses on those activities that only it can perform?

kingwyf87UID：2457409

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      ★ Rebuttal statements ★

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The moderator's rebuttal remarks

Our online debate on the role of government in fostering innovation is off to a fiery (炽热的, 暴躁的, 热烈的) start. Both sides are now offering their rebuttals, and, despite minor gestures of conciliation (说服; 和好; 安抚, 抚慰; 调解), it is clear that neither debater is really willing to concede much ground.

Amar Bhidé, arguing in favour of the proposition, takes on the favourite example offered up in defence of government funding of innovation: the creation of ARPAnet(阿帕网(美国官方的电脑网络，为Internet的前身)), the precursor to today's internet. Yes, he accepts, government funding did play an essential role in this example. But he then points to Minitel, a French government network that also had grand ambitions, cost billions but ultimately proved a turkey (无用的东西; 不中用的家伙). Indeed, it held France back from embracing the internet, the obvious winner of that technology race. "Should we have a few decision makers with no skin in the game placing bets on their favoured technologies rather than many independent innovators staking their time and money?", he asks.

Arguing against the proposition, David Sandalow offers a robust defence of government's role in fostering innovation. It is not only classical governmental functions such as patent protection, education and basic research that he defends. He takes on the charge that government must not pick technology winners, insisting that the American government's efforts to spur investments in battery technology are justified in part because of the externalities (外部经济效果) associated with energy use are not recognised by the market framework. Not only is government intervention required to internalize (使内在化) those social costs, he insists, but only can the wise hand of the state "guide innovation toward socially beneficial purposes".

The battle lines are drawn. Our combatants are intellectually clear on their differences, and not afraid to attack the other side's weaknesses. Which side do you believe has the upper hand? Cast your vote now.

kingwyf87UID：2457409

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The opposition's opening remarks

Governments spur innovation. Governments shape innovation. Many of the most important innovations in recent decades grew from the work of governments.

In 1965, a US government employee named Bob Taylor had an idea about how computers could communicate. He took the idea to his boss Charles Herzfeld, head of the Pentagon's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), who invested government funds in exploring it. That investment led to the ARPAnet and, in turn, to the internet, without which so many things (including this online debate) would not be possible.

An isolated example? Hardly. Among the innovations that grew directly from government funding are the Google search engine, GPS devices, DNA mapping, inexpensive mass data storage and even Teflon(美国杜邦公司).


Why is government important to innovation?

First, because the private sector underinvests (未能投资足够的钱，投资不足) in fundamental research. That is natural. Time horizons in many businesses are short. Few companies are in a position to capture benefits from fundamental research they might fund on their own. In many fields, fundamental research requires resources available only to governments and the largest companies. As Professor Henry Chesbrough documents in his book "Open Innovation", the big corporate research labs of decades past have given way to more distributed approaches to innovation. That gets many technologies to market faster, but at the expense of fundamental research. Without government support for such research, the seed corn for future generations would be at risk.

Second, because innovation depends on an educated workforce, which is a job for governments. Biomedical research requires medical technicians. Energy research requires engineers. Computer research requires programmers. Although private companies often provide specialised training, an educated workforce is the essential starting point. Primary and secondary education is a vital precursor (先驱者, 先进者, 前导) to much innovation. That is a job for governments everywhere. And universities play a central role, with training of promising young innovators often made possible by government funding.

Third, because market failures stifle (受抑止, 受阻止) innovative technologies. The recent financial crisis choked off (使放弃(劝阻，结束，严厉责备)) capital for innovators. Without governments stepping in to provide backstop support, thousands of promising innovations would have been lost due to the unrelated vagaries (奇特行为, 反复无常的行为, 奇想) of failing financial markets. There are many other examples. Lack of capital and information prevents homeowners from investing in energy-saving technologies with very short payback periods. Split incentives between architects, builders, landlords and tenants prevent widespread adoption of similar technologies in commercial buildings. Governments have a central role in overcoming these barriers, and more.

Fourth, because government policies and standards can lay a strong foundation for innovation. Last century, the United States benefited from government policies requiring near universal access to electricity and telephone services, laying the groundwork for a vibrant consumer electronics industry. This century, Finland and Korea (among others) are benefiting from government policies to promote broadband access, helping position each country for global leadership in a vast global market. New technologies require standards that allow them to operate within larger systems. The NTSC television broadcast standard, 110V AC current and FHA housing loans, to pick just three examples, each helped market actors coordinate, encouraging innovation. Or consider Israel, which has a teeming (丰富的，充满的) innovation culture in which the Israeli government plays a central role, providing the foundation for startups that commercialise civilian uses of military technologies in materials, semiconductors, medical devices and communications.

Finally, because governments help make sure innovation delivers public benefits. Not all innovation is good. Collateralised debt obligations were an important financial innovation. Yet as the recent financial crisis demonstrated, financial markets cannot be relied upon to self-regulate innovation. As government encourages and promotes innovation, it also has a role in guiding it.

In the academic literature on innovation, the number of patents issued in a country is often used as a proxy for the rate of innovation. Patents are, of course, issued by governments. As this suggests, governments play a central role in innovation.

In his inaugural (就职典礼的，创始的) address, President Obama said, "The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works…" That should guide us in thinking about this motion. The notion that "Innovation works best when government does least" is simplistic and wrong. There may be instances in which government meddling (干涉) chokes off (阻断) innovation. (Past US government restrictions on stem cell research come to mind.) Yet governments can and do play a central role in spurring innovation and making sure innovation delivers benefits. We should embrace government's role in innovation, always seeking to refine and improve it, not diminish it with broad generalities.

kingwyf87UID：2457409

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The proposer's opening remarks

Innovation now attracts innumerable worshippers but their prayers are often quite narrow and sectarian. Silicon Valley or possibly the Israeli high-tech industry is the promised land: a wondrous (令人惊奇的, 非常的) combination of private high-tech enterprise underpinned(从下头支持, 支持, 支撑)by government-financed universities and research labs.

This is, alas (唉，哎呀(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等)), a dubious conception of paradise. For all the high-tech prowess of Silicon Valley, the economy of California is on the edge of disaster. Unemployment in eight counties now tops 20% and the government pays its bills in IOUs. And in spite of its extraordinary concentration of scientific and engineering talent and entrepreneurship, Israel's GDP per head in 2009 was lower than of Cyprus, Greece and Slovenia.

Or remember Japan's omnipotent (全能的, 无所不能的), visionary MITI working hand and glove with the likes of NEC, Hitachi and Fujitsu? Put aside fiascos (惨败, 大失败) such as the ten-year Fifth Generation Computer Systems Project, by standard measures the overall level of Japanese engineering and scientific performance, either because of or in spite of government subsidies, is impressive. More tellingly (有效地; 显著地), Hong Kong's GNP per head is nearly 30% higher than Japan's, 24% higher than Germany's and 505% higher than Israel's. Yet Hong Kong's government and private businesses pay scant attention to cutting-edge (尖端) scientific and technological research.

The techno-fetishist view of innovation and the kind of government support it demands fails to appreciate the enormous variety of innovations that we need.

The measure of a good economy lies in the satisfaction it provides to the many, not a few, not in the wealth or accomplishment of a few individuals or organizations. And these satisfactions go beyond the material or pecuniary (金钱的, 课罚款的, 金钱上的) rewards earned: they include, for instance, the exhilaration of overcoming challenges. Indeed they go hand in hand: a good economy cannot provide widespread prosperity without harnessing the creativity and enterprise of the many. All must have the opportunity to innovate, to try out new things: not just scientists and engineers but also graphic artists, shopfloor workers, salespersons and advertising agencies; not just the developers of new products but their venturesome consumers. The exceptional performance of a few high-tech businesses, as the Silicon Valley and Israeli examples show, is just not enough.

This widely diffused, multifaceted (多层面的) form of innovation entails (使必需; 使承担; 使蒙受) a circumscribed role for governments: they should not to put their finger on the scale bribing people to do basic research instead of, say, the kind of graphics design that has made Apple such an iconic (图像的) company. Mandating (命令, 要求, 指令) more math and science in high schools when most of us never use trigonometry or calculus in our working lives takes away time from learning skills that are crucial in an innovative economy: how to listen and persuade, think independently and work collaboratively, for instance.

Yes, there is a problem with global warming, but that is best solved by innumerable tinkerers taking their chances with renewable energy and resourceful conservation, not by throwing money at projects that a few savants have determined to be the most promising. The apparent duplication of autonomous initiative isn't a waste: no one can foretell what is going to work. Even the most successful venture-capital companies have more misses than hits. Therefore putting many independent experiments in play raises the odds that one will work. When government gets into the game of placing bets, for instance, on new battery technologies, innovators who don't have the savvy, credentials and connections with politicians or the scientific establishment are at a severe disadvantage. Yet history shows that it is often the nonconformist outsiders who play a pivotal role. Would Ed Roberts have been able to secure a government grant to build the world's first personal computer, a virtually useless toy when it was introduced in 1974?

Of course a government doing the least doesn't mean a government doing nothing at all. Moreover, the least is a moving and ever expanding target. The invention of the automobile, for example, necessitated driving rules and a system of vehicle inspections. The growth of air travel required a system to control traffic and certify the airworthiness of aircraft. Similarly, radio and television required a system to regulate the use of the airwaves.

Modern technology created new forms of pollution that did not exist in agrarian (土地的; 农业的) economies. Governments had to step in, in one way or the other, to make it unrewarding to pollute. Likewise, antitrust (反垄断的; 反对垄断) laws to control commercial interactions and conduct emerged after new technologies created opportunities to realize economies of scale and scope—and realize oligopoly (寡头垄断) or monopoly profits. These opportunities were largely absent in pre-industrial economies.

But the principle of the least is best remains a true compass. New technologies not only create the need for desirable new rules, they but also generate more opportunities for unwarranted meddling and a cover for rent-seeking. It is one thing for the Federal Aviation Administration to manage the air traffic control system, quite another for the Civil Aeronautics Board (b. 1938, d. 1985) to regulate airfares, routes and schedules. The construction of the interstate highway system may have been a great boon to the US economy, for example, but it did not take long for Congress to start appropriating funds for bridges to nowhere.

Entrepreneurial leaps into the dark are best sustained by great caution in expanding the scope of government intervention; the private virtue of daring can be a public vice. The US chief justice has often repeated the maxim (格言; 座右铭): "If it is not necessary to decide an issue to resolve a case, then it is necessary not to decide that issue." Similarly, if it is not necessary to intervene to promote innovation, it should be considered necessary not to intervene. The government should focus on things that private enterprise simply cannot provide and stay away from promoting activities that would allegedly be undersupplied. If nothing, this maxim frees up resources for crucial public goods. So traffic police, emission rules and carbon taxes: absolutely. Subsidizing networks of hydrogen pumps and new engine or battery technologies: no thanks.

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      ★ Opening Statements ★

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The moderator's opening remarks

What is the right role for government in spurring (鼓舞) innovation? The outlines of this age-old (古老的) debate will be familiar to many. One side argues that governments inevitably get it wrong when they get too involved in innovation: picking the wrong technology winners, say, or ploughing subsidies into politically popular projects rather than the most deserving ones. The other rebuts (辩驳, 揭露) that given the grave global challenges we face today—in the 1960s America thought it was the Soviet (苏维埃的) race into space, today many countries worry about climate change and pandemic (全国流行的) threats—governments need to do much more to support innovation.

Happily for us, gentle reader, the two sides in the Economist's latest debate are moving beyond such platitudes (单调, 陈腐, 平凡) to novel arguments. Arguing in favour of (赞成，支持) the motion that innovation works best when government does least is Amar Bhide, a professor at Harvard and author of "The Venturesome Economy". His opening statement roundly denounces the visions of home-grown (本国产的；自产的) Silicon Valleys that dance in the heads of bureaucrats worldwide as "a dubious conception of paradise". California's bloated (发胀的，浮肿的，傲慢的) government is bankrupt and Japan's once formidable (强大的, 艰难的, 可怕的) MITI agency is in tatters (破布条; 破衣服; 碎片), he observes, but market-minded Hong Kong is flourishing (and its hyper-commercial denizens (居民, 外来语, 外籍居民) far richer than their coddled Japanese counterparts).

He adds for good measure that the "techno-fetishist(盲目崇拜者)" view of innovation represented by the top-heavy Japanese model pales in comparison with a robust, bottom-up version of innovation that harnesses the creativity and enterprise of the many, including the "venturesome consumers". He does acknowledge that governments have a role to play: "Doing the least doesn't mean doing nothing at all." However, his advocacy of a least is best policy, though conceptually elegant (文雅的; 雅致的; 端庄的), seems a bit slippery and is probably unhelpful in practice. In future postings, perhaps he will explain how exactly governments should decide whether they are doing too little or too much to help innovation.

David Sandalow, author of "Freedom from Oil" and a senior official in America's Department of Energy, presents a robust defence of government. He does make the familiar points about the need for governments to invest in education and fundamental research. He also adds slightly more controversial arguments about why government policies are required to overcome market failures (such as the recent financial crisis, which unfairly sapped (破坏...的基础; 削弱) innovators of credit) and misaligned incentives that hold back the adoption of worthwhile innovations (like energy-saving technologies with speedy paybacks).

More striking is Mr Sandalow's linkage of the global trend towards open innovation, which means companies increasingly rely on ideas from outside their own research laboratories, with the need for greater government spending on innovation. He argues that open innovation will get technologies faster to market, but at the expense of fundamental research of the sort that AT&T Bell Labs or Xerox Parc used to do. He insists that "without government support for such research, the seed corn for future generations would be at risk". That is a clever point, but it does not answer the obvious rebuttal that governments would inevitably invest in the wrong sorts of research (think, to stick with his analogy, of the money spent by the American government subsidising corn ethanol, an environmentally questionable but politically popular fuel).

Are you waiting for further rounds of jousting to decide which side to support? Don't be a mugwump (超然派; 中立者; 骑墙派), sitting on the fence with your mug in one hand and your wump on the other. Cast your vote now.

kingwyf87UID：2457409

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      ★Background Reading C★

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Attack of the really quite likeable tomatoes

The success of genetically modified crops provides opportunities to win over their critics
Feb 25th 2010 | From The Economist print edition



IN THE 14 years since the first genetically modified crops (转基因作物) were planted commercially, their descendants, relatives and remixes(使再混合, 再搅拌) have gone forth and multiplied like profitable, high-tech pondweed. A new report (see article) shows that 25 countries now grow GM crops, with the total area under cultivation now larger than Peru (秘鲁). Three-quarters of the farmland used to grow soya (大豆, 黄豆) is now sown (播; 散布, 传播; 播种于; 使密布; 播种) with a genetically modified variant, and the figures for cotton are not that far behind, thanks to its success in India. China recently gave the safety go-ahead to its first GM rice variety and a new GM maize (玉米) that should make better pig feed. More and more plants are having their genomes sequenced: a full sequence for maize was published late last year, the soya genome in January. Techniques for altering genomes are moving ahead (前进) almost as fast as the genomes themselves are stacking up (堆积), and new crops with more than one added trait are coming to market.

Such stories of success will strike fear into some hearts, and not only in GM-averse Europe; a GM backlash (反冲, 反撞; 强烈反对) is under way in India, focused on insect-resistant aubergines (茄子).Some of these fears are understandable, but lacking supporting evidence they have never been compelling. On safety, the fear which cuts closest to home, the record continues to look good. Governments need to keep testing and monitoring, but that may be becoming easier. More precise modifications, and better technologies for monitoring stray DNA both within plants and in the environment around them, mean that it is getting easier to be sure that nothing untoward is going on.

Then there is the worry that GM crops are a way for big companies to take over the livelihoods (生计, 生活, 营生) of small farmers and, in the end, a chunk of nature itself. Seen in this light the fact that 90% of the farmers growing GM crops are comparatively poor and in developing countries is sinister (不吉利的, 左边的, 凶恶的), not salutary (有益的, 有益健康的, 有用的); given Monsanto’s dominance in America’s soyabean market, it seems to suggest incipient (有益的, 有益健康的, 有用的)world domination. It is certainly true that big firms make a lot of money selling GM seeds: the GM seed market was worth $10.5 billion in 2009, and the crops that grew from that seed were worth over $130 billion. But multinationals are not the only game in town. The governments of China (which has increased agricultural research across the board), India and Brazil are also developing new GM crops. In 2009 a GM version of an Indian cotton variety, developed in the public sector, came to market, and a variety engineered by a private Indian firm has been approved for commercialisation. Charities, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, are also funding efforts in various countries to make crops more hardy or nutritious. GM seeds that come from government research bodies, or from local firms, may not arouse quite so much opposition as those from large foreign companies, especially when they provide characteristics that make crops better, not just easier to farm.

Moreover, where the seeds come from is a separate question from who should pay for them, as Mr Gates points out. As with drugs and vaccines, it is possible to get products that were developed with profit in mind to the people who need them using donor money and clever pricing and licensing deals. In the longer term, if the seeds deliver what the farmers require, the need for such special measures should diminish. After all, the whole idea is not that poor farmers should go on being poor. It is that poor farmers should get a bit richer, be able to invest a bit more, and thus increase the food available to a growing and predominantly urban population.

More than strange fruits

There is another worry about GM technology, though, that should be taken seriously. It is that its success and appeal to technophiles may, in the minds of those who pay for agricultural research, crowd out other approaches to improving farming. Because it depends on intellectual property that can be protected, GM is ripe for private investment. There is a lot of other agricultural research that is less amenable (顺从的; 对...负有义务的; 经得起检验的) to corporate ownership but still needs doing. From soil management to weather forecasts to the preservation, study and use of agricultural biodiversity, there are many ways to improve the agricultural systems on which the world’s food supply depends, and make them more resilient as well as more profitable. A farm is not a just a clever crop: it is an ecosystem managed with intelligence. GM crops have a great role to play in that development, but they are only a part of the whole.

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      ★Background Reading B★

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Climate-change politics: Cap-and-trade's last hurrah

The decline of a once wildly popular idea

Mar 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition

Gaia lent an unhelpful hand

IN THE 1990s cap-and-trade(“总量管制与交易制度”)—the idea of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions by auctioning off (拍卖) a set number of pollution permits, which could then be traded in a market—was the darling of the green policy circuit. A similar approach to sulphur dioxide emissions, introduced under the 1990 Clean Air Act, was credited with having helped solve acid-rain problems quickly and cheaply. And its great advantage was that it hardly looked like a tax at all, though it would bring in a lot of money.

The cap-and-trade provision expected in the climate legislation that Senators John Kerry, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham have been working on, which may be unveiled (使公诸于众, 揭幕, 揭开; 显露, 除去面纱)shortly, will be a poor shadow of that once alluring (诱惑, 引诱) idea. Cap-and-trade will not be the centerpiece (中心装饰品) of the legislation (as it was of last year’s House climate bill, Waxman-Markey), but is instead likely to apply only to electrical utilities, at least for the time being. Transport fuels will probably be approached with some sort of tax or fee; industrial emissions will be tackled with regulation and possibly, later on, carbon trading. The hope will be to cobble (修补, 补缀) together cuts in emissions similar in scope to those foreseen under the House bill, in which the vast majority of domestic cuts in emissions came from utilities.

This composite (混合成的) approach is necessary because the charms of economy-wide (经济性) cap-and-trade have faded badly. The ability to raise money from industry is not so attractive in a downturn (低迷时期). Market mechanisms have lost their appeal as a result of the financial crisis. More generally, climate is not something the public seems to feel strongly about at the moment, in part because of that recession, in part perhaps because they have worries about the science (see article), in part, it appears, because the winter has been a snowy one.

The public is, though, quite keen on new initiatives on energy, which any Senate bill (参议院的法案) will shower with incentives and subsidies whether the energy in question be renewable, nuclear, pumped out (抽出)from beneath the seabed or still confined to research laboratories. So the bill will need to raise money, which is why cap-and-trade is likely to remain for the utilities, and revenues will be raised from transport fuels. A complex way of doing this, called a linked fee, would tie the revenues to the value of carbon in the utility market; a straightforward carbon tax may actually have a better chance of passing.

Energy bills have in the past garnered (储存, 贮藏) bipartisan (两党连立的) support, and this one also needs to. That is why Senator Graham matters. He could bring on board both Democrats and Republicans. Mr Graham’s contribution has been to focus the rhetoric ( 修辞, 修辞学, 华丽虚饰的语言) not just on near-term (目前的，短暂的) jobs, but also on longer-term competitiveness. Every day America does not have climate legislation, he argues, is a day that China’s grip on (控制;握在) the global green economy gets tighter.

He also thinks action on the issue would be good for his party. While short-term Republican interests call for opposition, the party’s long-term interests must include broadening its support. Among young people, for example, polling (投票; 民意测验) suggests that the environment, and the climate, matter a great deal.

Unfortunately for this argument, tactics (战略, 策略) matter, and young voters are unlikely to play a great role in the mid-term election. Other Republicans may think it better to wait before re-establishing the party’s green credentials. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, for example, is happy to talk about climate as a problem, and talks about the desirability of some sort of carbon restriction—perhaps a tax, or some version of Maria Cantwell’s “cap-and-dividend” scheme. But she expresses no great urgency about the subject. And she has introduced one of two measures intended to curtail (缩减, 简略) the power the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) now has to regulate carbon, on the ground that (其理由是) that is a matter for legislation sometime in the future.

The EPA’s new powers undoubtedly make the charms of legislation greater. Some industrial lobbies (游说议员)
may decide that the bill will provide the certainty they need to decide about future investment, and get behind it. The White House has been supportive of late, inviting senators over to talk. But it remains an uphill (向上的，费力的) struggle, and the use of reconciliation (和解, 顺从, 调和) to pass health care could greatly increase the gradient of the hill, as Mr Graham has made abundantly clear.

If the bill does not pass, it will change environmental politics in America and beyond. The large, comparatively business-friendly environmental groups that have been proponents of trading schemes will lose ground (退却，落后，让步), with organisations closer to the grassroots (基层的, 一般民众的), and perhaps with a taste for civil disobedience, gaining power. Carbon-trading schemes elsewhere in the world have already been deprived of a vast new market—Waxman-Markey, now dead, would have seen a great many carbon credits bought in from overseas—and if America turned away from cap-and-trade altogether they would look even less transformative than they do today. And as market-based approaches lose relevance, what climate action continues may come to lean more heavily on (依靠) the command-and-control techniques they were intended to replace.

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      ★Background Reading A★

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Private-sector space flight: Moon dreams

The Americans may still go to the moon before the Chinese
Feb 18th 2010 | From The Economist print edition


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WHEN America’s space agency, NASA (国家航空和航天局), announced its spending plans in February, some people worried that its cancellation of the Constellation (星座) moon programme had ended any hopes of Americans returning to the Earth’s rocky satellite. The next footprints on the lunar regolith (表土，风化层) were therefore thought likely to be Chinese. Now, though, the private sector is arguing that the new spending plan actually makes it more likely America will return to the moon.

The new plan encourages firms to compete to provide transport to low Earth orbit (LEO). The budget proposes $6 billion over five years to spur (促进，刺激) the development of commercial crew and cargo services to the international space station. This money will be spent on “man-rating” existing rockets, such as Boeing’s Atlas V, and on developing new spacecraft that could be launched on many different rockets. The point of all this activity is to create healthy private-sector competition for transport to the space station—and in doing so to drive down (压低) the cost of getting into space.

Eric Anderson, the boss of a space-travel company called Space Adventures, is optimistic about the changes. They will, he says, build “railroads into space”. Space Adventures has already sent seven people to the space station, using Russian rockets. It would certainly benefit from a new generation of cheap launchers.

Another potential beneficiary (受惠者，受益人)—and advocate of private-sector transport—is Robert Bigelow, a wealthy entrepreneur who founded a hotel chain called Budget Suites of America. Mr Bigelow has so far spent $180m of his own money on space development—probably more than any other individual in history. He has been developing so-called expandable space habitats, a technology he bought from NASA a number of years ago.

These habitats, which are folded up (折叠起来) for launch and then inflated (使膨胀，使得意)
in space, were designed as interplanetary vehicles for a trip to Mars, but they are also likely to be useful general-purpose accommodation. The company already has two scaled-down (按比例缩减) versions in orbit.

Mr Bigelow is preparing to build a space station that will offer cheap access to space to other governments—something he believes will generate a lot of interest. The current plan is to launch the first full-scale habitat (called Sundancer) in 2014. Further modules will be added to this over the course of a year, and the result will be a space station with more usable volume than the existing international one. Mr Bigelow’s price is just under $23m per astronaut. That is about half what Russia charges for a trip to the international station, a price that is likely to go up after the space shuttle retires later this year. He says he will be able to offer this price by bulk-buying (大宗购买) launches on newly man-rated rockets. Since most of the cost of space travel is the launch, the price might come down even more if the private sector can lower the costs of getting into orbit.

The ultimate aim of all his investment, Mr Bigelow says, is to get to the moon. LEO is merely his proving ground. He says that if the technology does work in orbit, the habitats will be ideal for building bases on the moon. To go there, however, he will have to prove that the expandable habitat does indeed work, and also generate substantial returns on his investment in LEO, to provide the necessary cash.

If all goes well, the next target will be L1, the point 85% of the way to the moon where the gravitational pulls of moon and Earth balance. “It’s a terrific dumping off (倾销) point,” he says. “We could transport a completed lunar base [to L1] and put it down on the lunar surface intact (完好无缺的).”

There are others with lunar ambitions, too. Some 20 teams are competing for the Google Lunar X Prize, a purse of $30m that will be given to the first private mission which lands a robot on the moon, travels across the surface and sends pictures back to Earth. Space Adventures, meanwhile, is in discussions with almost a dozen potential clients about a circumlunar (绕月球的) mission, costing $100m a head.

The original Apollo project was mainly a race to prove the superiority (优越性) of American capitalism over Soviet communism (苏联共产主义). Capitalism won—but at the cost of creating, in NASA, one of the largest bureaucracies in American history. If the United States is to return to the moon, it needs to do so in a way that is demonstrably superior to the first trip—for example, being led by business rather than government. Engaging in another government-driven (政府为主导) spending battle, this time with the Chinese, will do nothing more than (仅仅，只是) show that America has missed the point.

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Innovation



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★原文链接★ http://www.economist.com/debate/overview/168
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About this debate

What is the right role for government in spurring innovation? The outlines of this age-old debate

will be familiar to many. One side argues that governments inevitably get it wrong when they

get too involved in innovation: picking the wrong technology winners, say, or ploughing subsidies

into politically popular projects rather than the most deserving ones. The other rebuts that given

the grave global challenges we face today—in the 1960s America thought it was the Soviet race

into space, today many countries worry about climate change and pandemic threats—governments

need to do much more to support innovation.