决战1010精英组Economist阅读——Finn分贴

kingwyf87UID：2457409

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      ★ Rebuttal statements ★

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词汇 短语 句子 例证 观点 注释

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

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

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

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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

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        ★ Closing Statements ★

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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

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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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.