America’s industrial policy has long driven innovation, despite free-market rhetoric and deep public investment in technology and pharmaceuticals, notes Mariana Mazzucato, an Italian-American economist and academic at UCL. Joe Biden revived mission-driven industrial strategy, but failed to translate capacity building into visible gains for households. Donald Trump has embraced industrial tools, yet uses equity stakes and tariffs without coherent missions or public-value conditions. His approach extracts value from firms while weakening research institutions and stripping labour, reinvestment and affordability requirements. Yet, Mazzucato argues, an industrial strategy will fail unless public risk-taking secures shared rewards, stronger institutions and outcomes ordinary voters can feel.
Otherwise_Young52201 on
>President Joe Biden first broke the industrial policy taboo with a series of legislative measures designed to catalyze private investment in semiconductors, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing. But his administration expanded productive capacity without ensuring that the gains reached **working people** more broadly, and this failure to translate government investment into **shared prosperity** contributed to President Donald Trump’s victory in 2024.
Lmao, these are straight up CCP talking points.
I don’t really see the point of these articles. Every single one of them is just shouting into the black hole that is Trumpian strategy.
Fantastic_Let3186 on
I think the square that’s hard to circle in this discourse is the following.
We have spent decades saying industrial policy is bad. The state cannot pick winners, subsidies are inefficient, and trying to guide the economy always fails. That logic is used to attack almost any government economic planning.
If that’s true, then China’s massive state subsidies are just them lighting money on fire. And if they’re only hurting themselves, why would the US need to respond at all? You don’t declare a national emergency because your competitor is making dumb choices.
But no, people argue that Chinese subsidies are a huge national security threat, that we “can’t compete” without tariffs, bans, and export controls, and that entire US industries will collapse if we don’t act.
You can’t have it both ways. Either industrial policy is ineffective, in which case China isn’t a threat and all this panic is fake. Or industrial policy is effective, in which case the obvious follow-up question is: why is it smart for China but somehow illegitimate or impossible for us?
3 Comments
America’s industrial policy has long driven innovation, despite free-market rhetoric and deep public investment in technology and pharmaceuticals, notes Mariana Mazzucato, an Italian-American economist and academic at UCL. Joe Biden revived mission-driven industrial strategy, but failed to translate capacity building into visible gains for households. Donald Trump has embraced industrial tools, yet uses equity stakes and tariffs without coherent missions or public-value conditions. His approach extracts value from firms while weakening research institutions and stripping labour, reinvestment and affordability requirements. Yet, Mazzucato argues, an industrial strategy will fail unless public risk-taking secures shared rewards, stronger institutions and outcomes ordinary voters can feel.
>President Joe Biden first broke the industrial policy taboo with a series of legislative measures designed to catalyze private investment in semiconductors, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing. But his administration expanded productive capacity without ensuring that the gains reached **working people** more broadly, and this failure to translate government investment into **shared prosperity** contributed to President Donald Trump’s victory in 2024.
Lmao, these are straight up CCP talking points.
I don’t really see the point of these articles. Every single one of them is just shouting into the black hole that is Trumpian strategy.
I think the square that’s hard to circle in this discourse is the following.
We have spent decades saying industrial policy is bad. The state cannot pick winners, subsidies are inefficient, and trying to guide the economy always fails. That logic is used to attack almost any government economic planning.
If that’s true, then China’s massive state subsidies are just them lighting money on fire. And if they’re only hurting themselves, why would the US need to respond at all? You don’t declare a national emergency because your competitor is making dumb choices.
But no, people argue that Chinese subsidies are a huge national security threat, that we “can’t compete” without tariffs, bans, and export controls, and that entire US industries will collapse if we don’t act.
You can’t have it both ways. Either industrial policy is ineffective, in which case China isn’t a threat and all this panic is fake. Or industrial policy is effective, in which case the obvious follow-up question is: why is it smart for China but somehow illegitimate or impossible for us?