All our lives we’ve been told that the free market economy is the best way to go. That the private sector and business can provide for the people far better than the government. However, is this how things really work? Or is it just an idea that we’ve come to accept because that’s what we’re told by big business? (never mind the fact that our economy isn’t even a truly free market economy.) In my experience large corporations play it just as safe if not safer than the government when it comes to innovation.
Case in point. Automobile companies. They’ve been dragging their feet on innovating technology for quite some time now. In fact their entire R&D process works on the idea of making small updates to cars. Now we burn through gas at an alarming rate, and our entire way of life in the US is built around the idea of cheap gas. We STILL have cheaper gas than most of the world too. We like to blame the price of oil on all kinds of shit like the rising industrial growth of China and India. But lets be honest, fucking California uses more gas than all of China. Kind of hard to place blame on other countries when we’re so ignorantly selfish about our own use isn’t it.
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/07/amazing-stat-ca.html
Energy companies. We’ve been using the same antiquated energy grid for a very long time. In fact it was based on the design of Nikola Tesla. Mother fuckin Tesla! He published this design in 1888. Hardly cutting edge technology eh? Hey if it ain’t broke and it’s still providing profit why fix it. Why even improve it?
How about something frivolous like the video game industry? The last few games that sold really well for consoles were all sequels. Grand Theft Auto 4, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, Metal Gear Solid 4, Super Smash Brothers Brawl.
Why? Because it costs a lot more money to invent something new than it does to make incremental improvements to something. All of these companies are exactly that…. companies. They live and die by their bottom line and earnings per share. This makes them a little nervous about investing in anything new. The problem is that currently, the new is exactly what we need. Now the question is, can our free market society give it to us.
Posted on July 22nd, 2008 by phaedrus
Filed under: general taste
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