[ExI] On a supposedly spurious argument/was Re: Private and government R&D

[Dan]

--- On Wed, 7/1/09, Stathis Papaioannou <stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/1 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>:
[big snip]
[me]
>> And, yes, perhaps funding levels would be lower in
>> purely nomimal terms.  I can't say for sure, though lower
>> nominal funding may not mean less important R&D gets
>> done, but that it gets done more efficiently and
>> effectively.  Recall the differences in the levels of
>> funding between the Wrights and Langley?  The latter had
>> roughly 350 times the funding, yet the Wrights not only
>> succeeded, they used a wind tunnel to deal with this, paving
>> the way for the near ubiquitous use of this device in air
>> flow design today.
> 
> That is a spurious argument. What about all the millions
> spent
> unsuccessfully on heavier than air flight by all the other
> private researchers throughout the ages?

That would only work as an argument against private investment here if the government effort happened in a vacuum -- that is, if the government effort likewise didn't depend on past work on "heavier than air flight by all the other private researchers throughout the ages."  Do you really believe that to be the case?  Do you believe Langley and the government effort into this area was completely isolated and ignored all previous effort?

(That said, I grant that the comparison between the Wrights and Langley is but one example and I wouldn't hinge any theory on this one case.  However, there are plenty of other cases where private and public investment can be compared that seem to show a similar outcome -- though usually with such a higher difference in inputs and results.*)

Regards,

Dan

*  For those here only interested in results, it's hard to see how they wouldn't be for private efforts as typically there are better results (in some cases, results like the Wrights actually flying and Langley's work being mostly a deadend) with less effort.  If one is a pure consequentialist -- even if it is hard to tell what that means and I doubt any who fancy themselves one really are thus -- wouldn't the lesson of history be the voluntary interaction yields the higher overall pay-off -- if you want wealth, technological goodies, and social peace?  (If, on the other hand, you value, say, oppressing people, then, of course, voluntary interaction is anathema.)