[nihilocrat]

I also think government dilutes the effectiveness of the experts it employs, but at the same time the private sector is amazingly, exceedingly incapable of seeing benefit from anything but immediate profits. Investing in highly risky pilot programs which have high costs and uncertain benefits is something the private sector, except perhaps a few optimistic billionaires, would never do. If we had never supported difficult-to-quantify never-never projects, we wouldn't be finding exoplanets, we would have never discovered that asteroids are clumps of unfathomably abundant resources, we would have never gotten to the Moon, and Europeans would never have explored the New World, because the benefits at the time seemed dubious and the funding came from governments.

I am optimistic just because I have a high amount of trust for German government. They are a lot more cautious and less bandwagon-hopping and more capable of pulling stuff like this off whereas for most other industrialized governments the Energiewende would just be a dramatic stage show created by former-execs-turned-bureaucrats to put taxpayer dollars into contractor's pockets without any concern for actual results.

[WalterBright]

I think you're overlooking the age of exploration, funded mostly by private interests, and things like the first transatlantic cable.

[ClHans]

Ah, but maybe he's not overlooking, for one example, the broadband monopoly or (essentially non-competitive) duopoly that exists in contemporary American society.

Compare what we've got with countries where the government owns the physical medium and leases it to a variety of bit-carriers--it's tough to argue against that kind of observable evidence.

There are plenty of cases where government stewardship of the playing field--with private companies competing on that playing field--works out for the great benefit of the citizenry.