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Re: Wednesday, April 12, 2006
Devine intervention aside, there are a couple of ways to look at this - the history of economic development in the US suggests that we have been most successful when government assists in infrastructure improvements or enterprises that can't be supported or are only partially supportable by the private sector - examples, the public has built ports, bridges, roads, canals, railroads, and interstate highways. The economics weren't there from the private sector to build the infrastructure - but governments' investment in the infrastructure facilitated further private sector economic development around these improvements. from my perspective as a web user, it appears that private companies and enterprises have largely developed the infrastructure of the web - it's true that publicly subsidized entities such as universities and governmental agencies were involved in early stage development, but overall the private side has developed. Rather than the interstates, maybe the railroads are a better example - initial public subsidy lead to a vibrant private sector operation (if you exclude passenger service in more modern times). Additionally, it's not like there is not sufficient capital in this country or the rest of the world to provide for the development - moreover, this is a global economic issue - multi-national companies are already engaged in the competition for customers and control of content. These comments are just some first thoughts about the topic & we will all benefit from further discussion of this topic.
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