The Market Is Not Enough

We need massive support for research and development, the predicate for technological advancement. Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, who has thought deeply about new strategies to make the U.S. more competitive, notes that 60 years ago, we led the world in government investment in research and development, but have become a laggard since then.

We should avoid shooting ourselves in the foot on anti-trust grounds. Atkinson points out that when NXP, a Dutch semiconductor company, bought a U.S. maker called Freestyle, the Federal Trade Commission required NXP to divest an important part of its operation ultimately to a Chinese company as a condition of the merger. Our regulators shouldn’t be doing China’s work for it.

We should temper our enthusiasm for tearing apart Big Tech. Atkinson notes that these firms, increasingly out of favor on the left and the right, invested 86 percent more in R&D in 2019 than the Chinese government did.