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The Industrial Policy Debate Re-examined
Johnson, Chalmers
27/1  (Fall 1984): 71-89 *

This article focuses on the American industrial policy as of September 1984. The support for industrial Research and development (R &D) is not just a matter of funding. It also includes a needed reorientation of our science and technology apparatus to develop production technology. Proposals for the international sharing and joint research and development of high technology are warranted, and both sides are cooperating toward putting them into effect. But such projects are only paffiatives. The bottom line of mutual access R&D activities will still be which country's firms come up with the best, cheapest, and most reliable products from the basic science that is available at any given lime. The answer must involve an American industrial policy that addresses the educational and engineering needs of American civilian industries, in addition to the other goals that such an industrial policy must meet. Industrial policy aims to clear out the costly and ineffective residue left by governmental attempts to displace the market and to put the government into the market as a strategic, competitive actor. Critics of industrial policy are complacent about the problems of the American economy and alarmist about the implications of industrial policy. They seem to hold the view that if there is no solution to a problem and industrial policy is thought not to be one-then, like the weather, it must simply be endured. Positive public action versus benign neglect is what the debate is all about.

 

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