The Myth of Science as a Public Good (by Terence Kealey):part 2

Terence Kealey gives a talk on why science is not a public good, and why it is be better off done in the private sector.

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[yetidetective]

wait, what? science is a public good. i don't get how he explained that it isn't. and funding it with public money doesn't preclude it's advancement in the private sector. but not funding it would preclude its advancement in the public sector. so why not let science go forward in both places instead of just one?

maybe pt 3 will enlighten me.

[Malthus0]

Funding it with public money does harm it's advancement in the private sector because it crowds it out. The more resources that go to public sector the less are available for private research. A scientist employed in a Govt. lab can not work for a private lab. The same applies to other resources. The result being rising costs and less research.

[Myrmecia]

Kealey is like a magician who focuses your attention on his right hand while in his left he is manipulating the card, coin or whatever. He uses GDP as his indicator of the value of research. Private research improves cluster bombs, advertising effectiveness, GM foods and other things that turn a profit and so count towards the GDP. Public research funds epidemiology, improved primary school teaching methods [500 character limit interposes] which don't impact on corporate profits or GDP. QED!

[hhiippiittyy]

Nuclear power??

[KAZVorpal]

Did you not actually listen to what the video said? It was pro-socialism data that showed how useless government spending on science really is.

[yetidetective]

apart from how our government operates, corrupt or not, I think it can be shown that science advances much faster under a model where public contributions fund research that produces "pure knowledge" side-by-side with a private sector that produces marketable technology based on the discoveries of the public research. As opposed to a model based entirely on free market and competition OR a model based entirely on government funded science.

[KAZVorpal]

That some government agencies happen to benefit the public is incidental, in the minds of their bureaucrats.

If you attempt to join and work in a government bureaucracy out of pure desire to serve/benefit the public, and you are not corrupted away from that attitude, you simply will not succeed.

You will never get past lackey status, because the actions you take to benefit people invariably fail to gain your department money and notoriety.

Coming in under budget can get you, literally, fired

[yetidetective]

"public agencies are not, in any way, for the public good."

that's obviously wrong. there are many ways that public agencies benefit the public. police, public schools, public libraries, public sanitation, mass transit, funding for medical research.

there is corruption in govt, but that doesn't mean that everything it has anything to do with is automatically harmful and corrupt.

The govt tends to fund research that isn't immediately profitable, but private co.s use that as a jumping off point.

[KAZVorpal]

Actually, public agencies are not, in any way, for the public good. They are for the profit of the bureaucrats and contractors who run them.

I say that as someone who worked as a consultant in DC for ten years.

They have EXACTLY the same motivations as private businesses, except their method of profiting is the exact opposite.

Private companies must benefit society in order to profit, because nobody pays them unless they're happy.

Government, on the other hand, can use force and fraud.

[yetidetective]

Government projects succeed all the time. They just built a school down the street from me on time and under budget. Does that mean that the Department of Education is going to lose funding in my state?

You're looking at this ALL WRONG. Public agencies are for the public good. Private agencies are for private benefit. They are different. Private agencies are better at turning a profit than Public agencies are, yes, but that's not what Public agencies do.

[KAZVorpal]

Budget reform cannot possibly fix the problem you two are describing

Inefficiency and waste are required by public funding, because they are the only thing rewarded, or rewardable. It would be irresponsible for a government to give taxpayer dollars out to projects that were under budget and accomplishing their goals. The only way to expand your budget, as a government agency, is to fail. To go over budget, to not succeed at your goals, et cetera

It's why those renovations never end.

[yetidetective]

I agree with everything you say here, but that still doesn't support the idea of removing public funding or the idea that private institutions would handle any of these things any better.

It does support the idea of public budget reform, which I am for. But that might require initially spending more money which most people are against.