#93 – The true source of innovation
Neither of the brothers who invented the airplane went to college.* The Wright Flyer—the first legitimate airplane—cost the brothers less than $1,000 (about $28,000 in today’s dollars) to construct, which they earned through profits from their bicycle business.
At the same time that the Wright brothers were designing and testing their flying machine, professor Samuel P. Langley, one of the most highly regarded American scientists of that time and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, was also designing his. Langley spent $70,000 (over 2 million dollars in today’s dollars) of grant money from the the U.S. War Department and the Smithsonian to develop this piloted airplane, which he called the “Aerodrome”. On its first flight attempt, the Aerodrome failed to fly and dropped into the Potomac River immediately after launch. The scene repeated on its second attempt a couple months later. This time, the pilot very nearly drowned in the river.
Nine days after Langley’s second attempt, the Wright brothers made history by managing four successful flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
This story illustrates an interesting competition between government subsidies and the free market as the true source of innovation.
No, the free market does not invariably succeed and government subsidies don’t always fail. But the reality is that innovation involves a lot of trial and error. It requires setbacks, failures, and mistakes. And the ability to correct them. The free market is simply a superior playground from which to have all those failures since no single individual possesses sufficient knowledge to be the sole source of solutions. In contrast, the government’s tendency to place its faith in the “expert” is seldom a good strategy.
*In fact, Orville Wright never completed high school and Wilbur Wright was posthumously awarded his high school diploma on his 127th birthday!
The weekly roundup
1. Book I’m reading
The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism by David D. Friedman
2. People are significance
Great article by Tom Hyde on “the human condition”. In scare quotes because its unlike any description of the term commonly used. An account of the deepest and most optimistic explanation of people:
3. Immortality in nature
TIL about the Turritopsis dohrnii, a jellyfish that’s virtually immortal. This incredible creature can revert to its juvenile state after reaching maturity and then grow up again, repeating the process indefinitely. Talk about aging backwards!
All credit to this tweet by Michael Golding.
(I can’t embed Twitter links on here anymore.)
4. A saint said
“A saint said ‘Let the perfect city rise.
Here needs no long debate on subtleties,
Means, end,
Let us intend
That all be clothed and fed; while one remains
Hungry our quarreling but mocks his pains.
So all will labor to the good
In one phalanx of brotherhood.’A man cried out ‘I know the truth, I, I,
Perfect and whole. He who denies
My vision is a madman or a fool
Or seeks some base advantage in his lies.
All peoples are a tool that fits my hand
Cutting you each and all
Into my plan.’They were one man.”
— David D. Friedman
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It's true that the private sector can innovate, but there is quite a body of literature that also suggests that the private sector is not properly incentivized to conduct R&D either, especially with respect basic research.
It's something I've tried my hand at "solving" with patent buyouts and other incentive mechanisms.
The Wright Brothers used government power to stop others from innovating in aviation. They serve as an excellent example of how intellectual property (be it copyright or patents) work to slow innovation down. https://time.com/4143574/wright-brothers-patent-trolling/