The Ramble: Lewis & Clark

A couple of months ago I finished a stellar book called Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose, about the Lewis and Clark Expedition (the link will take you to my review of the book).  It was utterly fascinating.  As I read it, I kept thinking about how cool it was for those early Americans to have such a vivid and real frontier.  They literally knew almost nothing about what the continent looked like further west than St. Louis.  I kept wondering about the frontiers that we face now, and I feel like they aren't quite as well-defined as they were 200 years ago.

That's not to say that we don't have frontiers now.  There is, of course, space (the final frontier!), and I think that we know relatively little about the deep ocean environment as well.  But beyond physical exploration, we have many frontiers of knowledge.  Cancer research comes to mind very quickly, for example.  How to create green energy in a way that makes economic sense is another frontier that we face.  Pretty much every research institution out there is chipping away at its own frontier in one way or another, and I'm really glad to be a (minuscule) part of that effort.  These frontiers are just as real as the Wild West, but they are perhaps not quite as easy to identify, or they are at least not as widely applicable-- i.e. pretty much everyone in the U.S. had an interest in exploring the West in the early 1800s, but not everyone cares whether I discover some new intricacy of U.S. Bankruptcy Courts.

So, where am I going with all of this?  Well, it's interesting that Lewis & Clark were funded by the U.S. government, to the tune of about $100,000.  That's about $1.5 million in today's dollars, which is a very small amount in the budget of the U.S. government.  But remember that back in 1804, the U.S. was not even 30 years old; it was far from the behemoth that it is today.  This represented a hefty investment by the government, pushed through by a visionary President Jefferson.

And, it very nearly was all wasted.  In fact, it's a miracle that Lewis and Clark actually survived the trek.  Between wars with the Indians and the elements, they were within a hair's breadth of death for most of the journey.  Can you imagine trying to prepare for a journey that would take two years, when you have no idea how hostile the Indians might be, how plentiful the game is, how harsh the winters are, if the mountains are even passable at all, or if there are navigable rivers to help transport your gear?  Lewis and Clark and their men were taking huge personal risks to even attempt this journey.  But Jefferson was taking a huge political risk as well, because if they never heard from the men again, Congress would have been rather upset about losing their $100,000 on a "sure to fail" venture.

We rightly honor and praise Lewis and Clark and Jefferson for their incredible vision, daring, planning, and ability to pull off such a journey.  But what if Lewis and Clark had been slaughtered in South Dakota?  Or frozen to death while wintering in North Dakota?  Or gone over a waterfall in Idaho?  Jefferson would have been ridiculed at the time, and the expedition would be but a footnote in history today.  So, here's my question: was this a good risk to take?  Was it a worthy use of government money?  You cannot justify the trip based on its success--that they succeeded was merely a stroke of incredible good fortune.  Put yourself in Jefferson's shoes in 1804, and imagine the probability of them making it was somewhere less than 10%.  Should he have done it?

I obviously can't answer that question, but it's important to think about because it directly applies to some of the arguments going on today.  Obama made a similar gamble in 2009 when he used part of the stimulus to fund green energy firms.  The poster child was a company called Solyndra, which as you probably know has now gone bankrupt.  A few others have gone bankrupt as well.  Obama has been roundly criticized for writing checks to these companies, only to see them go belly up.  Does Obama deserve any more criticism than Jefferson for their decision to fund these ventures?  I don't think so.  I'm not saying that Obama or Jefferson made the right or wrong decision--that's a tough call for sure.  But it is certainly unfair to judge them completely based on the results, because Jefferson just got lucky while Obama got unlucky.  With decisions like this, you have to judge based on the information that was available beforehand, not on what happened in the end.

More broadly, to what extent should the government be paying for frontier exploration?  To answer this question, you have to think about two things.  First, if the government didn't fund it, would anyone else?  Second, is the government better at picking the right projects than the private sector?  In my opinion, the answer to the second question is usually no.  It takes omniscience to pick the right projects, and the government just isn't all-knowing.  The free market is the closest thing we've got to omniscience, I'm afraid.  That's why I'm often skeptical of efforts by the government to promote particular industries (like green tech, agriculture, or auto manufacturing).

But, there are many instances where the private market would not fund early-stage research that is vitally important for breaking through knowledge frontiers.  This research has value.  Most venture capitalists are not going to fund some quack academic who is studying something that isn't marketable.  This is where the government has a huge role to play, and does so quite well, in my opinion.  A large number of research projects are funded by government grants, and this is needed in order to push the envelope of knowledge.  But, once a project is economically viable, it's time for the government to step out of the way to let the private sector take over.