The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public Vs. Private Myths In
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The Entrepreneurial State Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths Mariana Mazzucato 1 As a matter of fact, capitalist economy is not and cannot be stationary. Nor is it merely expanding in a steady manner. It is incessantly being revolutionized from within by new enterprise, i.e., by the intrusion of new commodities or new methods of production or new commercial opportunities into the industrial structure as it exists at any moment. Joseph Schumpeter (1942 [2003], 13) The important thing for Government is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little better or a little worse; but to do those things which at present are not done at all. John Maynard Keynes (1926, xxx) It is a popular error that bureaucracy is less flexible than private enterprise. It may be so in detail, but when large scale adaptations have to be made, central control is far more flexible. It may take two months to get an answer to a letter from a government department, but it takes twenty years for an industry under private enterprise to readjust itself to a fall in demand. Joan Robinson (1978, 27) Where were you guys [venture capitalists] in the ’50s and ’60s when all the funding had to be done in the basic science? Most of the discoveries that have fuelled [the industry] were created back then. Paul Berg, 1980 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner (quoted in Henderson and Schrage 1984) 2 CONTENTS List of Tables and Figures List of Acronyms Acknowledgements Foreword by Carlota Perez Introduction: Do Something Different A Discursive Battle Beyond Fixing Failures From ‘Crowding In’ to ‘Dynamizing In’ Images Matter Structure of the Book Chapter 1: From Crisis Ideology to the Division of Innovative Labour And in the Eurozone State Picking Winners vs. Losers Picking the State Beyond Market Failures and System Failures The Bumpy Risk Landscape Symbiotic vs. Parasitic Innovation ‘Ecosystems’ Financialization Chapter 2: Technology, Innovation and Growth Technology and Growth From Market Failures to System Failures Myths about Drivers of Innovation and Ineffective Innovation Policy Myth 1: Innovation is about R&D Myth 2: Small is Beautiful Myth 3: Venture Capital is Risk Loving Myth 4: We Live in a Knowledge Economy – Just Look at all the Patents! Myth 5: Europe’s Problem is all about Commercialization Myth 6: Business Investment Requires ‘Less Tax and Red Tape’ Chapter 3: Risk-Taking State: From ‘De-risking’ to ‘Bring It On!’ 3 What Type of Risk? State Leading in Radical (Risky) Innovation Pharmaceuticals: Radical vs. ‘Me Too’ Drugs Biotechnology: Public Leader, Private Laggard The National Institutes of Health: Creating the Wave vs. Surfing It Chapter 4: The Us Entrepreneurial State The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Programme Orphan Drugs The National Nanotechnology Initiative Chapter 5: The State behind the iPhone The ‘State’ of Apple Innovation Surfing through the Waves of Technological Advancements From Apple I to the iPad: The State’s very visible hand How State-funded research made possible Apple’s ‘invention’ of the iPod Giant magnetoresistance (GMR), SPINTRONICS programme and hard disk drives Solid-state chemistry and silicon-based semiconductor devices From capacitive sensing to click-wheels The Birth of the iPod’s Siblings: The iPhone and iPad From click-wheels to multi-touch screens Internet and HTTP/HTML GPS and SIRI Battery, display and other technologies Did the US Government ‘Pick’ the iPod? Fostering an Indigenous Sector Chapter 6: Pushing vs. Nudging the Green Industrial Revolution Funding a Green Industrial Revolution National Approaches to Green Economic Development China’s ‘green’ 5-year plan UK’s start–stop approach to green initiatives 4 United States: An ambiguous approach to green technologies Pros and cons of the US model Pushing – Not Stalling – Green Development The Importance of Patient Capital: Public Finance and State Development Banks Chapter 7: Wind and Solar Power: Government Success Stories and Technology in Crisis Wind and Solar Power: Growth Powered by Crisis From the First ‘Wind Rush’ to the Rise of China’s Wind Power Sector Solar Power Companies and the Origin of Their Technologies Solar Bankruptcies: Where There’s a Will There’s a Way Competition, Innovation and Market Size (Who’s Complaining?) Conclusion: Clean Technology in Crisis Myth 1: It’s all about R&D Myth 2: Small is beautiful Myth 3: Venture capital is risk loving Building a green innovation ecosystem (symbiotic not parasitic) Chapter 8: Risks and Rewards: From Rotten Apples to Symbiotic Ecosystems Back to Apple: What Did the US Government Get Back for Its Investments? Apple’s job-creation myth: Not all jobs are created equally Apple’s love–hate relationship with US tax policies The paradox of miracles in the digital economy: Why does corporate success result in regional economic misery? Where Are Today’s Bell Labs? Chapter 9: Socialization of Risk and Privatization of Rewards: Can the Entrepreneurial State Eat Its Cake Too? The Skewed Reality of Risk and Reward A New Framework Direct or Indirect Returns Chapter 10: Conclusion Appendix Bibliography 5 LIST OF ACRONYMS AEIC American Energy Innovation Council ARPA-E Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (US Department of Energy) ARRA American Recovery and Reinvestment Act ATP Advanced Technology Program BIS Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (UK) BNDES Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Brazilian Development Bank) CBI Confederation of British Industries CBO Congressional Budget Office (UK) CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research, Geneva DARPA Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (USA) DECC Department of Energy and Climate Change (UK) DEMOS UK think tank DoD US Department of Defense DoE US Department of Energy DRAM Dynamic random-access memory EC European Commission, Brussels EPA Environmental Protection Agency (USA) EPRI Electric Power Research Institute FDA Food and Drug Administration (USA) FINNOVFINNOV EC FP7 project (www.finnov-fp7.eu) FIT Feed-in tariff GDP Gross domestic product GE General Electric GMR Giant magnetoresistance GPS Global positioning system GPT General purpose technology GW Gigawatt GWEC Global Wind Energy Council HM Treasury Her Majesty’s Treasury (UK) IP Intellectual property IPO Initial public offering on stock market IPR Intellectual property rights MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology MITI Ministry of International Trade and Industry (Japan) MRC Medical Research Council (UK) MW Megawatt NAS National Academy of Sciences (USA) 6 NESTANBER National EndowmentBureau of Economic for Science, Research Technology (USA, andnon-profit) the Arts (UK) NIH National Institutes of Health (USA) NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology (USA) NME New molecular entity NNI National Nanotechnology Initiative (USA) NSF National Science Foundation (USA) NYT New York Times (USA) OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OSTP Office of Science and Technology Policy (USA) OTA Office of Technology Assessment (USA) OTP Office of Tax Policy (USA) PhRMA Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (trade association) PIRC Public Interest Research Centre (USA, non-profit) PV Photovoltaic R&D Research and development Standard & Poor’s (S&P) stock market index, based on the market capitalizations of 500 S&P 500 leading companies publicly traded in the US SBIC Small Business Investment Company (USA) SBIR Small Business Innovation Research (USA) SITRA Suomen itsenäisyyden juhlarahasto (Finnish Innovation Fund) SMEs Small and medium enterprises SRI Stanford Research Institute (USA, non-profit) SST (American) Supersonic Transport project TFT Thin-film transistor TFP Total factor productivity TW Terawatt VC Venture capital WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization 7 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The book could not have been written without the intellectual stimulus and hard work of many colleagues and friends. First and foremost were inspirational exchanges with two of the world’s best economic historians: Carlota Perez and Bill Lazonick. Carlota’s work, and our constant discussions, on the role of the State in different phases of technological revolutions, has challenged me to think hard about the changing role of different types of ‘capital’ – finance and production – over time. And the role of the State in guiding both for productive rather than purely speculative ends. But of course innovation requires some speculation – which Bill has been very careful to distinguish from ‘manipulation’. Bill’s incisive analysis leaves no words untouched, careful for example to distinguish business from the market, what most of us confuse when we use the term ‘private sector’. Bill’s work on the changing structure of capitalist production, and its relationship to labour markets and financial dynamics should be required reading for all students interested in the theory of the firm, and all policymakers interested in reforming finance to make capitalist production more inclusive and sustainable. I also thank Bill for introducing me to two of his most brilliant master’s students: Oner Tulum and Matt Hopkins, who provided me with the best possible research assistance one can get. Oner applied his surgical methods of studying company reports to get to the bottom of how much the State provided to Apple, both in terms of the underlying technologies as well as early stage financing; Chapter 5 could not have been written without him. And Matt applied his sharp and passionate