Consider the following sentences Without the State/Elon Musk we would have no iPhone/SpaceX The role of the State/Elon Musk was crucial for the success of the iPhone/SpaceX The State/Elon Musk played a very important role in the development of the iPhone/SpaceX The State/Elon Musk were one of the factors  that played a role in the development of the iPhone/SpaceX The State/Elon Musk played a minor role role  the development of the iPhone/SpaceX The State/Elon Musk had nothing to do with the development of …

If you've been reading the series on Mazzucato, Innovation and so on, you may have found holes in my arguments, or unaddressed reasonable concerns. Rest assured, I'm aware of that. Here I will present some of that objections that can be made to my arguments, but I won't respond to them yet. To make things extra fun, I will write what follows as if the writer were another person criticising me, with a slightly angry tone. The Hayekian argument is wrong So you are one of those market fundamentalists. If so, o…

You probably know Nikola Tesla, the man who according to a series of sites you can find around invented basically everything. Not quite, however. If you go and read a proper Tesla biography, such as W. Bernard Carlson's Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age you will discover that many things said about Tesla are myths. However, there is consensus in attributing Tesla the invention of the induction motor and of rotating magnetic fields. Now, suppose Tesla hadn't ever been born. And I present you with a quest…

[This post is a translation of this other post of mine] I recently read Mariana Mazzucato's The Entrepreneurial State, where it is proposed that the State has and ought to have an important role in the scientific-technologic field, beyond solving market failures and externalities. As a reminder that States do things in this sector it is okay. Maybe it could be of some use to believers in some sort of heroic entrepreneurs. But in general, the book is poorly argued and documented. (In the near future I hope t…

[This post is a translation of this other post of mine] As we saw in a previous post, one of the main examples used by Mariana Mazzucato to validate her arguments is the case of the iPhone. Let us remember, Mazzucato's thesis is that most of modern technology is due to directed governmental research efforts, not only in basic science, but also in technological commercialisation, direct investment, loans, etc. These kinds of policies make up what she calls The Entrepreneurial State. We must make clear the di…

[This post is translation of this other post of mine] The most important example in Mazzucato's book The Entrepreneurial State is probably that of the iPhone: She goes as far as dedicating one entire chapter only to that example. The fixation with Apple's device is justified: It takes one of the typical examples of supposed entrepreneurial creativity, an effort of garage entrerepeneur, and a triumph of capitalism, and subverts it, making us se that the visible hand of the State has been behind it, without h…