I’m still on the topic of innovation. Slate has an article on what an “innovation driven industrial policy” would look like.

It is not—and has never been—that the U.S. does not have a de facto industrial policy. Through regulation, foreign investment rules, trade barriers, and even subsidies (think ethanol), the federal government has found ways to support U.S. industry. And even the most ideological appropriators have not succeeded in removing millions of dollars of research funding channeled through the long-standing research agencies like the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or through programs established to support development of that research, such as the Small Business Research Innovation program (now branded as “America’s Seed Fund”).

Slate

So the idea is that an industrial policy would take all this and put it under some kind of central management intended to spur progress in key areas. Then it would pump out more funding and encourage private industry to do the same.