America and Japan as Industrial Role Models. Reflections on Michael H. Best, The New Competitive Advantage: The Renewal of American Industry

Many in the economics profession have a deep suspicion of industrial policy, and rightly so: but it is typically a suspicion of the efficacy of massive industrial subsidisation of the major corporations by the state. Best points the way to a more creative industrial policy aimed at providing the enabling conditions for rapid entrepreneurial growth, and he is able, as an engineer-economist, to specify what this means in a rapidly changing world. Where we must remain somewhat suspicious is in his willingness to accept that the position of a major corporation as an entrepreneurial firm is unproblematic so long as it adopts the appropriate business model. This shows in his treatment of Intel. Whilst recognizing that the Intel example contains many desirable characteristics associated with dynamic innovation and production, the ultimate congruence between the technological trajectory driven by corporations like Intel and the public interest cannot be taken for granted.