“The critique of private space companies by many on the left is frequently that those billions could be better spent helping the poor or other philanthropic goals. Of course, the Hayekian answer to that question is we don’t know. Predictions about outcomes based on investments are speculative, but there are two points in favor of the space billionaires overusing public money in the pursuit of opening up space. First, the billionaires have track records building successful institutions and seeing market opportunities. That doesn’t mean private sector investment is always right—take the Segway as a good example of that. But they have done it before…private money is much more agile and responsive than public money. When space exploration is driven by private actors and investors rather than bureaucrats, market signals will be received by people with a vested interest in acting upon them. Bezos, Musk, and Branson have experience with building on successes and ending failures. Bureaucracies rarely die and aren’t nearly as innovative as the private sector.”
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Samizdata quote of the day – private spacefaring editionJanuary 13th, 2025 |
 21 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – private spacefaring editionLeave a Reply |
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Isn’t the obvious riposte either 1) that the rockets may go into space, but the wages of the engineers and techies that design/build/control them are spent here on earth supporting real families. Or, should it be 2) it’s Bezos/Musk/Branson’s own money and they can spend it any damn way they please?
The responses are good, but the argument here speaks to the stuff that isn’t always obvious to people who like to hate on enterprise etc.
This is based on a myth — namely that the problem with the poor is a lack of public money. The truth is that poverty is a consequence of government disfunction. Governments getting more money to spend on the problem often makes the problem worse. In many respects it is advantageous to the government to have a lot of people in poverty because then they become dependent on the government, giving the government more power and money.
“The critique of private space companies by many on the left is frequently that those billions could be better spent helping the poor or other philanthropic goals…”
Also, it never occurs to the left that without successful entrepreneurs creating that tremendous wealth, it simply wouldn’t exist in the first place.
To put that in terms an academic might understand: try to imagine Harvard without its USD50 billion private endowment and relying entirely on federal and state taxes for funding.
I would not put Branson in the same league as Bezos or Musk. He has spent years developing a “spaceplane” which just touches the edge of space and then comes down again. Not much chance of colonizing Mars with that one.
“The truth is that poverty is a consequence of government disfunction.”
And, at a more local level, personal dysfunction. Does everyone here know personally at least one person whose life is a shit show and whom you just know will never get their act together as long as they live? The socialists think that they can help such people by handing them money when, over and over again it has been proven not to work. That kind of person will just spend it and then be broke again.
Serious question. Do those edge of space planes have the potential for cutting down journey times for really long haul flights by flying really fast?
We are already giving billions to the poor. As always, the argument is based on envy. “Why are those rich bastards doing whatever they want with my money. The Left always argues everything should be in common, at least until they get more goats than their neighbors have.
Another argument is that “Those rich guys get all the good stuff first!” This is not always true. Sometimes they get the bad things first. In this, they are serving the public as guinea pigs.
Lots of thoughtful comments, but i feel that they miss the central insight of the OP/SQotD:
* that should be: State-funded bureaucracies.
This also applies to alleviating poverty.
Give Elon Musk a _perceptible, measurable_ (ie not necessarily related to personal profit) incentive to alleviate poverty, and he’ll find a way to do it.
Provide State funding to a bureaucracy aimed at alleviating poverty, and poverty will almost certainly increase; because the more poverty there is, the more State funding is forthcoming to said bureaucracy.
JJM:
You don’t have to imagine it: just look at universities outside of North America.
But there is a downside: without a large endowment, a university is not free to pursue DEI, except in countries where most voters endorse DEI. Few countries have voters who can afford the luxury of indulging in such insanity.
A better (well, less bad) argument could be made that all the money wasted on building Teslas and other EV toys for the rich could be better spent “to help the poor.” But saying so would be a heresy against the current incarnation of Leftism.
There’s also the dishonesty in that by “help the poor” they mean the urban poor. The rural poor, in their view, are scum and kulaks who need to be liquidated as a class. (And if Musk helps those rural poor by making Starlink connections available to them, that just makes him more evil, not less. He’s just encouraging those deplorable peasants to get uppity and revolt against their betters.)
JohnK, don’t dismiss Branson. He tried something, its not working great, compared to his rivals. That’s how innovation works.
As spaceflight and poverty are being discussed, Heinlein is apt:
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as “bad luck.”
Stonyground:
I don’t think Branson’s spaceplane has any prospect of becoming a viable transport system. It is a way of getting some people to part with $200k for the thrill of travelling on the edge of space for a few minutes.
Fred:
I’m afraid I do dismiss Branson. He has made himself a lot of money, but usually just by licensing his Virgin brand out. He doesn’t really run these businesses. The brand seems to have some value to people.
Do those edge of space planes have the potential for cutting down journey times for really long haul flights by flying really fast?
I was hoping that Sir Richard Branson’s outfit would be in that area.
BTW, since someone here said that Branson’s efforts were not really about going to Mars, who cares? Not all space enterprise is about going to another planet; 99% of what Musk does in this sector is about getting satellites up for cheap and developing recoverable rockets, for instance.
The billions I spend on single-malt scotches and other pastimes probably could also be “better spent” on helping the poor, but only if someone else is defining “better spent.” Happily, I get to define that term when using my own funds.
@Stonyground
Serious question. Do those edge of space planes have the potential for cutting down journey times for really long haul flights by flying really fast?
Yes. In fact it is part of SpaceX’s business model to modify Starship to do point to point passenger service — New York to Shanghai in less than an hour . Not quite the same, but the US military has contracts with them to investigate Starship based delivery — delivering materiel quickly to any point on earth.
“[Government] Bureaucracies … aren’t nearly as innovative as the private sector.”
Government bureaucracies in general stagnate in their methods and policies.
OTOH, governments have, on occasion, gone into “blue-sky” projects which almost no private investor would attempt (usually because there’s no prospect of monetary profits). Most of these fail, of course, but a few have succeeded.
OYAH, clever-dick bureaucrats seeking to impress will throw other people’s money at shiny new stuff that doesn’t work yet (or ever).
A few decades ago California was the most prosperous society in the world – indeed the most prosperous society this planet had ever seen.
Now, and even BEFORE the Los Angeles fires, California, measured against the cost of living, has the worst poverty in the United States – yes the poor are, measured against the cost of living, worse off in California than they are in West Virginia or Mississippi – an astonishing (utterly astonishing) transformation.
Has California not spent lots of money? No – both State and local government in California have spent utterly vast sums of money, they have spent such vast sums of money on “anti poverty programs” and “public services” that the human mind has great difficulty in grasping the sheer scale of the government spending to “help the poor”.
At this point anyone who still thinks that more government spending, perhaps taken from private space programs, is the way to help the poor, is an idiot – indeed to use the word “idiot” is to be polite.
Even in the 1960s some of the leading academics who designed “anti poverty programs” and “public services” knew (they knew) that such spending would increase (not reduce – increase) poverty stricken dependents over time – for example the infamous Marxist couple “Cloward and Piven” (like Saul Alinsky – very influential).
They did not want to reduce poverty, they wanted to INCREASE poverty – they wanted to destroy traditional families and traditional (mutual aid – rather than taxpayer aid) community groups, both religious and secular, and replace them with political activist groups (sometimes by taking over the churches).
American society in the big cities (and in other places to) has not died a natural death – it has been murdered.
Murdered by people who deliberately wanted to increase poverty – in order to destroy “capitalism”. They-said-so – they openly admitted (indeed boasted) that wanted to overburden the system – so that it would eventually, perhaps over generations (the deliberate growth of an under class), collapse.
The biggest mistake that F.A. Hayek, and others, made was to assume the left were good people who were just intellectually mistaken – they are not good people, “Cloward and Piven” and Saul Alinsky were not good people in the 1960s, and the left (such as Governor Newsom or Mayor Karan Bass) are not good people now – they cause-harm-on-purpose – their objective is to destroy what is left of Civil Society and replace it with Collectivist Tyranny – either Marxism, or some other form of Collectivist Tyranny.
With all due respect for Musk we should not forget that his wonderful enterprises (SpaceX and Tesla) were mostly financed by government contracts and subsidies, as well as government propaganda.
The electric car is a fully government mandated and supported product. Without government there would be no electric cars.
Jacob – to some extent that is true, but Mr Musk also risked his own money – especially on SpaceX which is his passion.
By the way, in recent years the government has tried to undermine SpaceX.