War for Innovation?

by Liberty and Power

Thomas Friedman of the New York Times is apparently unfamiliar with the voluminous economic literature on the benefits of market-based social cooperation, especially the division of labor and the law of association. Why else would he refer to a"war" for innovation, as he does in this horrendous column:

The bottom line: we are actually in the middle of two struggles right now. One is against the Islamist terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, and the other is a competitiveness-and-innovation struggle against India, China, Japan and their neighbors. And while we are all fixated on the former (I've been no exception), we are completely ignoring the latter. We have got to get our focus back in balance, not to mention our budget. We can't wage war on income taxes and terrorism and a war for innovation at the same time.

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Robert L. Campbell - 4/22/2004

Tom Friedman has many faults already known to readers of this blog. He was a big proponent of "nation building" in Iraq--though also more visibly worried that the attempt might fail in a spectacular fashion than his counterparts in the Dubya administration were.

All the same, this particular column is unusual in its frank methodological nationalism and its equation between economic competition and rivalry for military dominance. Friedman is also an indifferent to poor analyst of educational systems, and it shows here (I have grave doubts that graduate education in Chinese unversities could improve that much in 10 years, unless the ruling clique in China is willing to relax its grip on educational institutions).

If I see more columns like this, I'll revise my estimate...but for the time being I'm going to assume that Friedman has been cranking them out too fast lately.