Post by Iain Dooley on Aug 14, 2016 11:53:01 GMT
In addition to funding any "natural monopolies" I think it's reasonable to expect the government to also fund lots of R&D/innovation.
In her book The Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucatto argues that it's really the US government that has produced a lot of the technological success that we've seen in the USA recently:
marianamazzucato.com/the-entrepreneurial-state/
So investing in technology and R&D can be a fantastic way for the government to invest in the capital required for a prosperous future. This type of investment in national assets is what really "saves" for our future -- a nation cannot "save" for it's future in dollar terms.
The 3 core areas I would like to see the government invest in R&D are:
- Food production: organic, local food production systems to provide reliable food at scale recognising the damage that monoculture farming has done to our land and protecting the intellectual property rights of farmers who invest in seed husbandry across generations. This has impacts on water usage, climate change, food security, transport requirements and protects us from potential shocks in future food supply
- Energy production: we rely too heavily on fossil fuels, and in particular on oil imports which are all purchased in US dollars. This makes us vulnerable to shocks in oil supply, a core reason for the ousting of the Whitlam government in the 70s. With investment in public transport, solar power, walkable/local communities and employment opportunities, we can reduce our carbon footprint and improve our national security and economy
- Open source eGovernment software: the #CensusFail debacle has shown how inadequate the government procurement process is. We need a dramatically different approach to government investment in technology, starting with a wide-ranging project to develop eGovernment (voting, administration) and eHealth software. This can be done as an open source project with direct government employment rather than outsourcing to contractors such as IBM who have, ironically, a more inefficient bureacracy than the public service.
Using the open source model not only for software but also for innovation in the form of a government patent system that would allow commercialisation of the technology by the private sector would be transparent, enable better process and peer review and, in the case of software, increase the security and trust in the systems.
In her book The Entrepreneurial State, Mariana Mazzucatto argues that it's really the US government that has produced a lot of the technological success that we've seen in the USA recently:
marianamazzucato.com/the-entrepreneurial-state/
So investing in technology and R&D can be a fantastic way for the government to invest in the capital required for a prosperous future. This type of investment in national assets is what really "saves" for our future -- a nation cannot "save" for it's future in dollar terms.
The 3 core areas I would like to see the government invest in R&D are:
- Food production: organic, local food production systems to provide reliable food at scale recognising the damage that monoculture farming has done to our land and protecting the intellectual property rights of farmers who invest in seed husbandry across generations. This has impacts on water usage, climate change, food security, transport requirements and protects us from potential shocks in future food supply
- Energy production: we rely too heavily on fossil fuels, and in particular on oil imports which are all purchased in US dollars. This makes us vulnerable to shocks in oil supply, a core reason for the ousting of the Whitlam government in the 70s. With investment in public transport, solar power, walkable/local communities and employment opportunities, we can reduce our carbon footprint and improve our national security and economy
- Open source eGovernment software: the #CensusFail debacle has shown how inadequate the government procurement process is. We need a dramatically different approach to government investment in technology, starting with a wide-ranging project to develop eGovernment (voting, administration) and eHealth software. This can be done as an open source project with direct government employment rather than outsourcing to contractors such as IBM who have, ironically, a more inefficient bureacracy than the public service.
Using the open source model not only for software but also for innovation in the form of a government patent system that would allow commercialisation of the technology by the private sector would be transparent, enable better process and peer review and, in the case of software, increase the security and trust in the systems.
