WE ARE GRATEFUL to all the authors who responded to our essay. We are also pleased to note that the majority of respondents broadly agree with the central concept of missions as a new organizing framework for industrial policy. Nevertheless, several important critiques and concerns were raised that merit discussion.
One concern raised by several respondents—John Fitzgerald and Robert Kuttner, Nathan Lane, and Erica R.H. Fuchs—is that our essay is written at too high a level of abstraction and that what matters are concrete policies for specific countries rather than general ideas. In our defense, while the Biden administration’s rejection of market fundamentalism would appear to suggest the battle of (general) ideas has been won in the United States, things are rather different on the other side of the Atlantic and elsewhere. In Europe and beyond, progressive, social democratic governments are thin on the ground, and there has not been the same vast fiscal stimulus nor the targeted and coordinated investments in areas like semiconductors that Fitzgerald and Kuttner describe. In the United States, China may now be acting to focus the minds of policymakers toward a much more proactive form of industrial policy, but we feel there is much more to do to make the case for proactive, mission-oriented industrial policy around the globe.