We should all be aware how public goods work. The problem is that they’re extremely difficult to make money out of. Therefore there’s a role for government in producing them. Not, not necessarily, that government should produce them, but that government should do some stuff to make sure they’re produced.
So, we get government to directly provide defence, enable excludability through copyright and therefore profit and so on. Which system works best - direct provision, regulation, law, or heck it’ll all work well enough anyway, just depends upon the specifics of what is being discussed.
There’s nothing there even vaguely controversial about public goods.
So, politics has defined the climate as being a problem that must be dealt with. There is a significant public goods problem here - given that emissions are not in market prices we at least have something hugely akin to the public goods problem. Politics has also decided that planning and subsidy are the way to deal with these - we disagree but then OK, we disagree.
Now we get to an absurdity.
The entire point of public goods is that it doesn’t matter who produces them. By their very nature once produced all can enjoy them. That they are produced matters, who by does not.
Yes, going green is akin to this. That someone develops cheap solar panels means we can all enjoy cheap solar panels. Windmills that work - when someone achieves that - similarly. Fusion only needs to be designed and proven once for us all to benefit from it.
As we say, politics has decided that planning and subsidy is the way to gain these desirable things:
The remarks are the first public acknowledgement by a minister that Britain could resort to trade tariffs if Chinese cars are found to have benefited from large state subsidies.
Since 2009, China’s central and local governments have subsidised domestic EV businesses to the tune of $100bn (£78bn), according to a study by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The claims have triggered an anti-subsidy investigation by the EU, which could put pressure on the UK government to act if it is found that Chinese brands have received an unfair advantage.
But this is insane.
We’ve decided that we must subsidise all sorts of people to develop the technologies we need. Because those technologies are, once they exist, those public goods. However, the moment Johnny Foreigner subsidises something that we all benefit from then this isn’t allowed. Because something or other absurd.
To repeat, the current conversation insists that cheap EVs must be achieved for climate change reasons. China’s taxpayers have spent $100 billion on getting to cheap EVs that we can now enjoy - and also save the climate. But we can’t have those cheap EVs and save the climate because it’s dirty, Johnny Foreigner, money that solved the problem?
This is entirely, wholly, fruit loop, insane.
This is before we even begin to consider how much of what we’ve expensively subsidised China will be willing to buy if we ban their stuff.
Just to remind, only local things for only local people is a joke in League of Gentlemen, not a blueprint for the running of a nation nor an economy.
And now really try thinking. The claim is it took $100 billion in subsidies to make EVs cheap enough to actually use. We’re now rejecting those cheap EVs because what? We want to spend $100 billion ourselves? It’s madness.