# Government monopolizing any role is dangerous When people expect the government to do something they stop doing it privately. This makes the ability to do it privately atrophy like an unused muscle. This leads to a situation where if the government doesn’t support something it just doesn’t happen. It is not inherently bad for governments to do things. The historical example is innovation in China - it was supported by government … until it wasn’t. Governments are involved in permission progress per [[Permissioned and Permissionless Progress]] * This is the flipside of [[More Uncorrelated Mistakes lead to more success]] - if government monopolizes a role, it will at best correlate the mistakes and at worse cause fewer mistakes ### Reference * [[mokyrLeverRichesTechnological1992]] p 234 * [[bahcallLoonshotsHowNurture2019]] <!-- #evergreen --> [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Government+monopolizing+any+role+is+dangerous) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Government+monopolizing+any+role+is+dangerous)