Post by @ChrisMayLA6@mastodon.me.uk

Industrial policy has been much maligned as 'interventionism' even as most countries have such a policy (even if its not called that & is more implied that explicit);

so Jostein Hauge is right to tease out five explicit reasons countries might develop & maintain an industrial policy:

Infant industry promotion;

response to market failure(s);

by passing coordination failures;

developing long-term strategic shifts;

national security & industrial autonomy.

#economics
https://www.theglobalcurrents.com/p/why-do-countries-need-industrial

Why do countries need industrial policy?

The case for looking beyond market failures

#economics

GeofCox

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social yesterday

@ChrisMayLA6

The 'response to market failure(s)' category is pretty broad, since ALL private investment markets are relatively short-term.

There is no market mechanism that can deal with disasters decades, or centuries in the making, like climate-ecological breakdown; there is no investment market that will direct funds to making the world better decades in the future rather than into relatively quick returns - or to returns that are tiny, but accrue indefinitely to everyone, such as retro-fitting home insulation.

Capitalism IS market failure.

Emeritus Prof. Christopher May

@ChrisMayLA6@mastodon.me.uk yesterday

@GeofCox

That's an interning final comment; I'd agree with the implication that markets do not equal capitalism - but markets themselves respond well to organisation, and surely capitalism itself is the collective organisation of market interactions (albeit on a class basis), so if capitalism is market failure, what would be the shape of a non-capitalist market (other than localised market-town like pre-modern trade)?

GeofCox

@GeofCox@climatejustice.social yesterday

@ChrisMayLA6

I think you have to take the insight that 'markets do not equal capitalism' a step further. The incentives built into capitalism are anti-market: they incentivise monopoly, elimination of market competition - including stripping potential workers of any means of making a living other than wage-labour - irresponsible exploitation of externalities, regulatory capture, and unlimited private capital accumulation.

Does Google (for example) behave as if it wants a market - or as if wants a monopoly ?

TaxTheRich

@NoBorderz@climatejustice.social 3 hours ago

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 technofuedalism?

Emeritus Prof. Christopher May

@ChrisMayLA6@mastodon.me.uk 18 hours ago

@GeofCox

Yes, fair comment - capitalism does tend to monopoly (or actually more often & insidiously to oligopoly) and so in that sense it clear is a market failure... but if capitalism (in theory) thrives on competition then this suggest the central role for capitalism of completion regulation - and its resistance by capitalists who recognise they are being forced to endure the logic of capitalism even as they benefit from its (market) failure.

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Police State UK

@PoliceStateUK@mastodon.me.uk yesterday

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6 Markets stopped working when Reagan and Thatcher gutted the bodies that were supposed to regulate them. The CMA in the UK, and is it SEC in the USA?

Biden sounded like he was doing some work to gently start moving in the right direction on that stuff, but the second Trump term has obviously obliterated any trace of that progress and slammed it into reverse. UK politicians and regulators still seem to be pretending we can have ethical capitalism if we just hope hard enough,

Jonathan Schofield

@urlyman@mastodon.social yesterday

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6

Bottom line is we think what we’ve lived in is normal but it’s anomalous
https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/111867603435972978

Jonathan Schofield

@urlyman@mastodon.social yesterday

@GeofCox @ChrisMayLA6

Bottom line is we think what we’ve lived in is normal but it’s anomalous
https://mastodon.social/@urlyman/111867603435972978

Mastodon

Jonathan Schofield (@urlyman@mastodon.social)

Attached: 1 image Helluva book cover 2026 update (thanks to Cameron in the replies): Christopher did have a website for his book at readblip\.com but that’s now been co-opted by some spamming endeavour. For an overview, see more lower down the 2024 thread https://mas.to/@jackofalltrades/111868294339918049

1 more replies