Engineering Is Not Entrepreneurship

The idea of mission-oriented government, or entrepreneurial government, has been supported using examples of successful government programs such as the Manhattan project or the Apollo program. These are examples of engineering successes, but they were not entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurship consists of producing innovations that produce more value than they cost, and in those examples there was no attempt to compare benefits to costs. A realistic view of the political process under which government actually operates shows that attempts to make government more entrepreneurial will result in programs with vague goals and no clear indicators of success. Voters like feel-good aspirations, and politicians like to propose programs that appeal to voters. The real entrepreneurs in the political process are lobbyists and interest groups who find opportunities for rent seeking and regulatory capture, reducing the efficiency of government. With sufficient resources, governments can produce engineering successes, but the political process works against governments being entrepreneurial. Engineering is not entrepreneurship.