Substantially increase the amount we spend on science and research to restructure our economy
“We must rebalance our economy towards industry and away from finance and services. We need to invest in the future by investing in science.”
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2. How does it fit with Compass’ core beliefs of equality, solidarity, democracy, freedom, sustainability and well being?
The attainment of greater social equality and the eradication of poverty will require wealth generation. If we want a brighter, greener, better future for our children only science can deliver that. The alternative is stagnation or economic decline.
3. How does it build the institutions of social democracy, like social groups and collective and cooperative forms of ownership and control?
As the state would be holding the purse-strings, the state could retain stakes in the share capital of any start-up businesses.
4. How much will it cost or raise and where will any cost come from?
The record of this government in investing in science and technology has been better than many previous ones. Spending on science has increased from £1.7bn under to Tories to £6bn now. This is still only 1% of government spending though. The average research spend in the G7 is 2.5% of GDP. We need to see at least a doubling of government spending in this area, particularly as British industry has an even worse record and accounts for a smaller sector of our economy than is the case for our competitors.
5. Which groups in the electorate are likely to support or oppose this measure? Is there any polling evidence you have on this?
Sadly, many in this country and the Labour Party are anti-science. They see it as elitist (the most misused term in the English language) and would prefer to spend the money paying people (even trained scientists) to do nothing, or would only fund science that yields immediate economic gains (the short-term Thatcherite utilitarian view). Then there are the eco-luddites who yearn for a return to pre-industrial society, while forgetting about the massive increases in life expectancy and quality that science has brought about.
6. Is there a place or country where it’s worked? Please provide some information.
Germany, Japan, France and the USA all spend substantially more on science than we do. Consequently they have a greater proportion of their economy devoted to industry. What a surprise! Paradoxically, we produce more science and engineering graduates per capita than all these countries. It’s just a pity we don’t have any jobs for them to go into.
7. What are the three main arguments in favour/against it?
For
a) It would improve our industrial base and help reverse the brain-drain.
b) It would improve the status of science.
c) By investing during this recession we could actual emerge from it better placed than our competitors for once instead of worse off.
Against
a) The government would have less money to waste on ID cards, the 2012 Olympics and MPs’ expenses.
b) People with arts degrees (and PPE from Oxford) may require additional counselling when they realise they are less important to the economy than they originally thought.
Comments
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David Flint
I support this proposal but it’s not enough. The proposer mentions the US but the US is good at creating new businesses because of its entrepreneurial culture, large home market and favourable tax system for venture capital. Japan and Germany are different but in both cases there are structural factors to be addressed.
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David Chester
This proposal is one that I support because it seems to me that our national understanding of Macroeconomics is so poor as almost not exist. Everyone should have some idea as to how it works (that is to say, how the nation functions as a whole) and to be able to decide if the government policies are sound or politically biased against parts of the community.
This macroeconomic knowledge was proposed by my previous proposal for research and teaching of this subject. I have to admit that I have recently developed such a theoretical understanding and this incomplete book is suitable for a part of this essential work. It is vital to remain out of politics on this matter.
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Josh W
Produce tax breaks for those companies who invest in pure/widely applicable research, on the condition that they make it public property. The only other requirement is that it is agreed to be acceptable research by the university, and that other companies agree that it is useful. This way, usefulness to the economy is assured not by top-down grant speculation, but because people in the real economy want it to be done.
Further, partial rebate should be given at the start of research, so as to encourage people to try stuff, but not encourage scamming. In order to further discourage scamming, the process should be as open as possible, so people who do behave dubiously get shown up.This way, science and technology become public goods, largely paid for by the government, but also seen as these people already need sponsors from their competitors, they will be more incentivised to pool money and sponsor each other!
The basic principle is that the tax break incentivises taking a hit for the group, so that it is no longer a competitive disadvantage. With this hurdle removed, companies can start to cooperate, though still trying to get the most advantage out of the technology for themselves!
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Posting Comment...
March 27th, 2009 at 11:42 pm
Produce tax breaks for those companies who invest in pure/widely applicable research, on the condition that they make it public property. The only other requirement is that it is agreed to be acceptable research by the university, and that other companies agree that it is useful. This way, usefulness to the economy is assured not by top-down grant speculation, but because people in the real economy want it to be done.
Further, partial rebate should be given at the start of research, so as to encourage people to try stuff, but not encourage scamming. In order to further discourage scamming, the process should be as open as possible, so people who do behave dubiously get shown up.
This way, science and technology become public goods, largely paid for by the government, but also seen as these people already need sponsors from their competitors, they will be more incentivised to pool money and sponsor each other!
The basic principle is that the tax break incentivises taking a hit for the group, so that it is no longer a competitive disadvantage. With this hurdle removed, companies can start to cooperate, though still trying to get the most advantage out of the technology for themselves!