Cold War Science Beat Free Market?

[Benman]

Government spending on certain sciences during and as a result of the cold war (nuclear, rocket, space, moon, computers, etc.) advanced the scientific knowledge ball much further than businenss as usual would have done during the same years. True or false?

[HeavilyArmed]

War does that.

[hmkpoker]

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True or false?

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We need a control group to know the answer.

[moorobot]

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We need a control group to know the answer.

[/ QUOTE ] We need a reason to think that the market would have invested in these things to even have a debate; the market is very short term/myopic in terms of investment and Research and Design; it is very rare for a company to invest in something in which no profit is going to be made for many years, especially if their is a large ammount of risk in terms of whether or not they will make a profit at all.

For one thing, businesses have to stay ahead of the competition in the short term, not just in the long term, but also, most companies fail before far before these "long term payoffs" occur-except corporations, which are not a market construct, and most employess and managers will be gone within a couple of years; in order to get their next job, they of course have to produce positive results for their current company while they are still working at that company. Also, it's very hard to forecast very far into the future.

For large, risky projects like those mentioned in the OP and simply for taking care of R&D generally (R&D has massive positive externalities so is underproduced in the market), the market simply can't be relied on.

[goodsamaritan]

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True or false?

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We need a control group to know the answer.

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Somalia?

[pvn]

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True or false?

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We need a control group to know the answer.

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Somalia?

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Hahahahah. I'm testing my new snake-oil based cold remedy. I give it to a guy who has a mild case of the sniffles. My control is a guy who just got hit by a train. Two weeks later, my patient is all better, and my control is dead. Obviously, my snake-oil remedy is a winner!

[sam h]

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True or false?

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We need a control group to know the answer.

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Only if we have a very limited definition of "knowledge."

[moorobot]

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Government spending on certain sciences during and as a result of the cold war (nuclear, rocket, space, moon, computers, etc.) advanced the scientific knowledge ball much further than businenss as usual would have done during the same years. True or false?

[/ QUOTE ] FYI-most spending on advancing scientific knowledge is still done by the gov't, not by private businesses. So more is still being produced than what would be without the government to assist the market.

[tolbiny]

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Government spending on certain sciences during and as a result of the cold war (nuclear, rocket, space, moon, computers, etc.) advanced the scientific knowledge ball much further than businenss as usual would have done during the same years. True or false?

[/ QUOTE ] FYI-most spending on advancing scientific knowledge is still done by the gov't, not by private businesses. So more is still being produced than what would be without the government to assist the market.

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How can you tell that the businesses aren't just accepting that there is no reason to compete with an entity with a trillion dollar budget and no need to turn a profit when theywill end up basically giving away that tech when they figure it out anyway?

[WordWhiz]

As an example, the airplane was developed entirely on the free market. It wasn't 25 years before we had commercial airline service. A few more decades, and we have jumbo jets taking hundreds of people to every corner of the globe in less than a day--a trip that used to take weeks by train or ship.

Compare that to the space program, a good example of research that the free market would probably not support. Why not? There's no market! We actual benefits we get from sending shuttles into space--at a cost of billions of dollars and several lives--are quite small, when you discount things such as national pride and the "cool factor." Money would be better spent elsewhere.

But we've finally gotten to the point where the private market is researching private space travel, because of the potential for a market. In ten years, we could have thousands of space tourists.

So even in areas where it looks like the free market would never accomplish a particular end, it ends up happening once there is consumer demand. I doubt there's any particular innovation or technology that is so large, and whose benefits are so diffuse, that it could not be accomplished via the free market.