Capitalism Promotes Objectivity in Science, Statism Makes it Politicized, Misdirected, and Distrusted
A sneak peek into a new 3rd edition chapter of "Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right"
This week I’m offering a sneak peek of a new chapter on science under capitalism versus under statism planned for the 3rd edition of Think Right or Wrong, Not Left or Right: A 21st Century Citizen Guide to be published this summer. As always, I appreciate your feedback. Have I omitted anything truly significant? Have I included anything of minor importance that may be left out? Let me know - cheers!
As mentioned in the prologue, your right to be in control of your life stems from what it means to be a human being. You survive and thrive by thinking. Opposing thumbs make life easier, but it is your capacity to think conceptually and to reason abstractly that sets you apart from gorillas, chimpanzees, and every other species in Mother Nature. Having the right to be in control of your life means that you must have the freedom to put your thoughts into action, to make all life’s decisions, big and small, to use your time to the best of your ability, and to dispose of the fruits of your labors as you see fit. Without this freedom, your right to be in control of your life is violated. This applies to all areas of life, but nowhere is freedom of thought and action more important than in science. Allowing men and women to use their minds to formulate hypotheses, test them, and act on the results without being shackled by non-objective laws, regulations, government funding restrictions, and other political and bureaucratic limitations is an integral part of respecting individual rights.
Science is the foundation of the unimagined advances of both the past and the future that we discussed in section 5.6. Without science, progress comes to a standstill. Interference in science by statist governments is an important reason why less of the unimagined has been realized in recent decades (in areas other than information and digital technology which have been comparatively free of government involvement).
Government financed and/or conducted science is often based on political, regulatory and bureaucratic preference rather than a market-based return on investment. Taxes, tariffs and inflation reduce the amount of funds that corporations and other organizations have available for scientific pursuits (more about inflation in chapter 6.3). Government regulations increase the cost of doing science. And uncertainty about the tax, inflation and regulatory future breeds risk aversion, putting a damper on long-term scientific investments as the financial return is hard to gauge.
Many mistakenly believe that government is the ultimate objective arbiter of worthwhile scientific pursuits. The truth is the opposite: government involvement politicizes science as it creates an environment of warring factions with conflicting scientific agendas fighting over limited available resources.
Only in a statist social system is the government involved in science. Under statism, connections and ability to navigate the government grant bureaucracy often takes precedence over the actual science. Scientists with the right connections and abilities frequently secure government funding for projects that would not attract capital in the free market. And their findings, whether objectively proved or not, may result in new laws and regulations if in line with a scientific agenda that is currently in favor in political, regulatory and government science bureaucracy circles. For example, the past few decades have seen significant government support of environmental research biased towards finding evidence of the negative impacts of fossil fuels without considering their enormous positive contributions to society.1 Similarly, scientists promoting certain dietary guidelines based on dubious government funded research have had the ear of bureaucrats at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), and at non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American Medical Association (AMA). This has resulted in misguided government guidelines with damaging impacts. The past few decades’ unscientific low-fat diet craze is one such example2, as are government dietary guidelines3. Similar outcomes are found in most scientific areas where government is involved.
Obviously, scores of brilliant scientists are working on government funded projects in a welfare statist society like the U.S. But the dependence on the government as, in many cases, the only source of funding, presents a challenge to the integrity even among the best of them. Being passionately vested in their field, they often travel down the slippery slope of tailoring their grant requests to what they think the National Institute for Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), regulatory agencies funding research, etc., are likely to approve. Adding insult to injury, prominent scientific journals such as Science and Nature mostly publish articles that fit the dominant narrative as exposed by Patrick Brown4 and others. This slow, corrupting influence is one of the most damaging aspects of government involvement in the sciences in a statist society.
In a capitalist social system, funding for science is almost exclusively the role of private entities: large corporations, venture-capitalists, private universities and other research institutions, wealthy individuals with an interest in science, etc. Some scientific endeavors get more funding than in a statist society, others get less, and yet others are eliminated depending on what is valued in the science marketplace. Government may still play a legitimate role in coordinating and funding military research as the military is a valid responsibility of a capitalist limited government. But in a capitalist society, much of what today is managed directly by Department of Defense agencies5 such as the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), is the responsibility of private research organizations and corporations.
What if the marketplace does not value research in certain critical areas where the return on investment is not imminent? A capitalist social system encourages and rewards long-range thinking, so this is unlikely. And many areas where the financial return may be elusive will still be financed by individuals and organizations who put a non-monetary value on the research. Remember that in a capitalist social system, continuous productivity and profit increases—and reduction of taxes and regulations—will make available vastly larger sums of money for basic and applied research than is the case in today’s welfare statist society dominated by government funded research.
Furthermore, capitalism encourages a fail-fast attitude, meaning that scientific endeavors going down a blind alley are less likely to continue to be funded, leading to a more efficient allocation of capital over time. Today, many government-funded projects are not subject to similar rigorous checks and balances.
In a capitalist social system, scientists are more likely to shop around for funding instead of relying on the government as the single source. Many with attractive research propositions will see funding entities competing for their favors, something that is virtually unheard of today. As a consequence, the temptation to let the need for funding compromise your integrity is reduced.
Finally, a comment on public trust in science. Under statism, with science being subject to political and bureaucratic pull and pressure, the public gradually loses trust. For example, the public trust in science took a hit during the COVID-19 pandemic and currently stands at a multi-decade low6. Government entities such as the National Institute of Health (NIH) and Center for Disease Control (CDC) issued statements about the origins of the virus (wet markets) that later proved to be politically and bureaucratically motivated. And they suppressed or condemned contrary hypotheses (lab leak) that have since proved more likely. The CDC and NIH also published recommendations about masking, social distancing, and vaccination that weren’t fully based in objective science. For example, the agencies at one point incorrectly stated that vaccination made you non-contagious if contracting the virus. And they recommended mandatory vaccination for young children who were at little or no risk of getting seriously ill. They strongly encouraged states and local communities to implement draconian, individual rights violating measures. As a result, large parts of the public understandably reacted with skepticism and distrust of any subsequent guidelines and other information issued by the agencies, whether warranted or not.
Capitalism doesn’t guarantee that science always gets it right. But the science marketplace consisting of scientists, entities involved in scientific research, financial backers, and consumer and industry watchdogs ensures a much healthier system of checks and balances than under statism. And when it takes a wrong turn, corrective action is much swifter than in a statist society dominated by government funded, politicized science. As a result, public trust is a hallmark of science under capitalism.
I like the fact that you are regularly updating your book. This tells the reader you are expanding your knowledge and sharpening context.
Government funding = outcomes for sale.