Statists and other controllers don't get economic growth. Or the economics of spaceflight. But some technologists are starting to get the message.
The controller theory of economic growth is that it is driven by technological innovation. Wrong! Since the development of new growth theory by future Nobel Prize winner Paul Romer in the 1980's it has become clear to economists that economic growth did not start with the industrial revolution in the 18th century, but with the creation of market mechanisms and social institutions in the 17th century which created a fertile ground for the exploitation of technological advances. Those changes were all about making decentralized decision making viable, rather than enforcing viability through central control.
Governments and their agencies don't get this though. They think spaceflight must be created through central direction, rather than nurtured through the vagaries of decentralized decision making. But, some of the technologists are starting to get this idea right.
I was really struck by the new growth ideas percolating through the article in The New Atlantis entitled "The Path Not Taken". This guy has his new growth theory down cold, and he doesn't even know it. He doesn't have to ... it's a more natural worldview than the cumbersome idea of centralization that is forced on us by different parts of society.
Tip of the hat to Random Jottings for the post entitled "They Were the First Tentative Space Vehicles".
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