[ExI] Private and government R&D

[Mirco Romanato]

Eschatoon Magic ha scritto:
> Instead of making a religion war of this, how about simply
> acknowledging that both private and public R&D funding have their
> roles?

Rothbard supported that the public funds are better used to purchase of
research done by private actors, not to organize the research done by
public employees.

So, if a government want the research done, the best way to obtain it is
to pay for the results of the research, not to hire scientists,
technicians, clerks and so on and organize them as ministerial clerks in
a hierarchical way.

Better again, I would support, is to reduce the taxes paid by an entity
if it expend them for scientific and technological R&D.
If IBM spend 10 Billons in research this year, IBM will pay 10 Billion
less in taxes next year.
Research would bloom as much as it would be minimally profitable.

The problem with public funding is that the governments have different
priorities than the governed. They will fund what is useful for the
politicians to keep their power and will refuse to fund (if they don't
prohibit them) the researches that could damage them.

Private entities have not this problem, they don't owe nothing to the
majority of the voters; they try to satisfy their clients because their
life is linked to their client's welfare.

The Prohibitionism (both alcohol and drugs) show exactly this.
The politicians continue to support damaging politics because they must
stick to the politics they supported in the past. There is not "We did a
mistake, let change course". The find, near always, a way to shift the
costs and the blame of their mistakes.

Mirco