IT IS LONG PAST TIME to throw free-market ideology on the ash heap of history and embrace an active state role in shaping the ends to which the economy works. On this front, the work of Mazzucato, Kattel, and Ryan-Collins is essential, pointing the way toward restoring public purpose to the center of our economic life. Yet one crucial element is missing in recent calls to revive industrial policy: a robust internationalist vision for restructuring the global economy so that growth in each individual entrepreneurial state supports growth in the others.
Lacking such a vision, governments are already starting to use industrial policy within a structure of zero-sum competition that, left unchecked, will further fan the flames of nationalism and great power conflict while ruining aspirations for inclusive and sustainable growth—not to mention progress on global problems (climate, disease, inequality) that require international cooperation.