Quote:
Originally posted by Undertoad
To suggest that innovation can be prodded along via regulation is to ignore the very nature of innovation. It isn't rigidly controlled; in fact, it seems the more rigid the control, the less innovation. Innovation follows unexpected routes; when everyone is looking down one path, it finds a skew path that works better. Regulation, meanwhile, demands that we stay on the SAME path.
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In general, true. But let's review history. In the late 1960s, all domestic US automakers were halting innovation. The great advances of the 1950s and 60s - automatic transmissions, valves that rotated so as to not fail, turbine engines, stratefied charge, fuel injection, sterling cycle, power steering, disk brakes, variable valve timing, electronic ignitions, front wheel drive, etc - were driven to a halt by 1970s. Safety features available in the 1930s were not even used by some GM models until as late as 1992.
Automakers went before Congress in late 1960s claiming that 1974 pollution standards were not possible, when Chrysler already had a test fleet running in CA. The man from Chrysler responsible for much of those early innovations (CAP) was, instead, quashed by automaker top management - banned from all SAE meetings.
Regulation is not about requiring innovation so much as it has been about empowering the innovators. Congress mandated fuel mileage standards that helpled save the American auto industry - by empowering car guys at the expense of bean counters. Congress mandated EPA standards that empowered innovators outside the industry to create new technologies. In particular I am thinking of emmission systems developed by Exxon - that GM bean counters refused to consider because 'it was not invented here'. He told me the story - personally. Regulation made those anti-Americans inquire about and eventually purchase that Exxon innovation.
Unfortunately some industries get and deserve more regulation. Need we mention energy trading as example?
Regulation can be anti-innovative - such as the super intelligent decision by George Jr to protect the steel industry - so they could stop innovating for another 40 years. It is not regulation that is or is not the problem. It is whether the industry gets the regulation it deserves.
The auto industry is falling back to an anti-America attitude so prevelant in the 1970s. If we don't require them to innovate, then we must also remove all laws intended to protect those domsetic industries. Clearly those protections will not be removed from the industry. Therefore, and unfortunately, an industry with a long history of turning anti-American must be confronted with laws that empower their car guys at the expense of the bean counters.
In an industry where innovation thrives, regulation is all but non-existant - computer industry. However in one that has stifled innovaton - telcom industry - the 1996 Communiation Act was necessary. Without that act, xDSL still would not exist because baby Bells fear to pioneer new technologies and AT&T fears all new technologies. The computer industry slump is do, in part, to stifled innovation inthe telecom industry. Unfortunately, we did not regulate them enough so that their monopoly priced competition out of existance.
Regulation cannot be uses as a blanket cure all. It is a surgical tool that is, unfortunately, necessary to keep mafia and bean counter mentalities from stifling the innovators.