Fly me to the Moon
Mariana Mazzucato wants to revive the Apollo spirit
IN JULY 1969 America launched three astronauts into space, landed two of them on the surface of the Moon and safely returned all three to Earth. A remarkable demonstration of American might, the achievement still dazzles more than half a century later; no country on Earth could replicate the feat today. The contrast with America’s bumbling response to covid-19 could scarcely be more glaring.
In 「Mission Economy」 Mariana Mazzucato argues that societies ought to abjure tired ideologies and embrace the policy approach that put astronauts on the Moon. By setting grand missions for themselves, she writes, and deploying the power of the state in practical ways, they can become more prosperous and equitable. It is an appealing idea, even if America has rarely looked less capable of purposeful collective action.
Ms Mazzucato is an Italian-born economist of a heterodox bent, whose work has long challenged standard economic thinking about the role of markets and government in generating innovation. Her best-known book, 「The Entrepreneurial State」 (published in 2013), argued that American technological prowess is owed in large part to the strong influence of the federal government, which funded and bore the risk of the initial development of many critical 20th-century technologies. Conventional economic wisdom remains a target in her latest work, too.
Scepticism among dismal scientists about government involvement in markets is based on faulty assumptions, she insists. Common complaints about state meddling—that governments are less efficient than private firms, cannot pick winners, and are staffed by self-interested bureaucrats concerned only with their own status—are belied by an impressive record of government successes: developing the foundation of the internet, for instance, or extending financial assistance to Tesla. Not every public investment pays off. But, in Ms Mazzucato’s view, neither is the record of privatisation of public assets and outsourcing of public tasks an unmitigated triumph. In America and Britain they have produced plenty of wealthy consultants, she says, but not a revolution in public-service efficiency or vast savings.
A rethink is thus overdue, the author urges—and the Apollo programme reveals many ways in which a capable state can create economic value. The sense of purpose and urgency that infused the programme in the 1960s motivated the government agencies involved to innovate, Ms Mazzucato writes, as well as to improve communication and weed out inefficiencies. Retaining important technological capabilities in-house enabled NASA to engage in a more sophisticated fashion with private contractors and monitor their progress better. It also helped the government retain talent, since working for the state could involve meaningful engineering work, not just banal paper-pushing.
And the programme’s technological demands—like the need for smaller, more powerful and more reliable computers than were available at its inception—put pressure on contractors to innovate. They did so, fearlessly, because the state shouldered much of the risk associated with moonshot technologies. The government’s demand for cutting-edge kit sowed the seeds of the computing age to come. The MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, tapped to develop guidance and navigation systems for the mission, swept up 60% of America’s output of integrated circuits at the peak of the Apollo effort. For its part, NASA helped shape the industrial ecosystem of America’s tech sector: to avoid becoming too dependent on any one contractor, it spread business around, implanting know-how across many firms.
These points are compelling. State projects can certainly go wrong, but there is no mistaking the vital role governments played in facilitating the development of rich economies. Conversely, the weakening of state capacity—to provide badly needed infrastructure and basic services, educate citizens, root out corruption, and so on—has hurt America’s dynamism and the welfare of its people. There is no shortage of daunting global problems in need of solving; Ms Mazzucato singles out the fight against climate change, campaigns to improve public health and efforts to narrow the digital divide.
Yet in the end it is hard to feel inspired by her book. America launched the Apollo programme at what may well have been the zenith of its state capacity. Not only was the government at its most capable, but state initiatives enjoyed maximum public legitimacy and confidence. That proficiency had been forged during decades of crisis: two world wars, a devastating depression and an existential superpower stand-off against the Soviet Union. The bipartisan consensus that supported a strong state shattered long ago; a new sense of national unity and purpose cannot be conjured out of thin air.
Arresting as Ms Mazzucato’s views on economic development are, her book does not really offer a route back to that purpose and cohesion. But that is what America needs most. Sadly, those goals look as remote and inaccessible as the Moon.
帶我去月球
瑪麗安娜·瑪祖卡託想要復興阿波羅精神【《探月經濟》書評】
一九六九年七月，美國將三名太空人送入太空，其中兩人登陸了月球表面，最終三人全部安全返回地球。這是美國實力的傑出展示。半個多世紀過去了，這項成就仍然光彩奪目——今天世界上仍沒有哪個國家能複製這一壯舉。這與美國抗疫不力的對比實在太過鮮明。
瑪麗安娜·瑪祖卡託（Mariana Mazzucato）在《探月經濟》（Mission Economy）一書中指出，社會應該摒棄陳舊的意識形態，積極採用那種送太空人上月球的政策方針。她寫道，通過為自己設定宏大的任務，並以務實的方式調配國家力量，社會可以變得更加繁榮和公正。這是一個吸引人的想法，即使美國極少像現在這樣看起來缺乏能力去採取有使命感的集體行動。
出生於義大利的瑪祖卡託是一位非正統經濟學家，她的研究長期以來都在挑戰有關市場和政府在推動創新中的作用的標準經濟思想。她在自己最著名的《企業家國家》（The Entrepreneurial State，2013年出版）一書中提出，美國的超強科技實力在很大程度上應歸功於聯邦政府的強大影響力，是聯邦政府資助了20世紀許多關鍵技術的發展並承擔了發展初期的風險。她的新作依然在挑戰傳統經濟理念。
她堅持認為，經濟學家對政府介入市場持懷疑態度是基於錯誤的假設。對政府干預常見的抱怨包括政府的效率不如私營公司、不能篩選出贏家、充斥著只關心自身地位的利己主義官僚等。然而這些說法與政府取得成功的驕人記錄相左，比如政府發展了網際網路的基礎，或向特斯拉提供了財政補貼。並非每一筆公共投資都能取得回報。但瑪祖卡託認為，公共資產私有化和公共服務外包的記錄也不是滿分。它們在美國和英國造就了很多富有的政府顧問，她說，卻沒有帶來公共服務的效率革命或巨額節省。
因此，早就該重新思考國家的作用了，作者敦促道，而阿波羅計劃揭示了一個有能力的國家可以有很多方式創造經濟價值。瑪祖卡託寫道，上世紀60年代注入該計劃的使命感和緊迫感促使相關政府機構積極創新、改善溝通，消除低效。在內部保留重要技術能力讓美國國家航空航天局（NASA）可以與私人承包商開展更複雜的合作，並更好地監督它們的進度。它也幫助政府留住了人才，因為為國家工作也能參與到有意義的工程項目中，而不只是幹些平淡乏味的行政文書工作。
而阿波羅計劃的技術要求給承包商施加了創新壓力，比如它需要比項目啟動時現有的計算機體積更小、功能更強大、性能更可靠的機型。它們敢於無畏地創新是因為國家承擔了開發探月技術的大部分風險。政府對尖端設備的需求為計算機時代的到來播下了種子。受命為阿波羅項目開發制導和導航系統的麻省理工學院儀器實驗室（MIT Instrumentation Laboratory）在項目頂峰期消耗了美國產集成電路的60％。而NASA幫助塑造了美國科技行業的工業生態系統——為避免過於依賴任何一家承包商，它分散了業務，將技術知識植入了眾多公司。
這些觀點很有說服力。國家項目當然有可能出問題，但政府在促進富裕國家發展的過程中所發揮的重要作用毋庸置疑。相反地，國家在提供亟需的基礎設施和基本服務、教育公民、剷除腐敗等方面的能力減弱損害了美國的活力和人民的福祉。這個世界不乏需要解決的艱巨的全球問題，瑪祖卡託特別指出了對抗氣候變化、改善公共衛生以及縮小數字鴻溝方面的努力。
然而讀到最後，很難覺得這本書帶來了啟發。美國很可能是在國家能力的巔峰期啟動了阿波羅計劃。不僅政府的能力處於最高水平，而且國家項目享有最大的公眾認可和信心。那種能力是經歷數十年的危機錘鍊出來的：兩次世界大戰、一場毀滅性的大蕭條，以及與蘇聯的超級大國生死對決。支撐起一個強大政府的兩黨共識在很久以前就破裂了，新的國家團結和使命感不可能憑空而來。
儘管瑪祖卡託對經濟發展的看法奪人眼球，但她的書並沒有真正給出一條重塑那種使命感和凝聚力的途徑。而這正是美國最需要的。可悲啊，這些目標看起來就像月球一樣遙不可及。