The Making of a New Government-Funded Moonshot Model
The venture capitalist state—an idea legitimized by the development of lifesaving Covid vaccines—has a new champion in U.K. finance chief Rishi Sunak.
Sunak, the U.K.’s chancellor of the exchequer.
Source: HM Treasury
There is no subject that divides economists quite like the role of government. The left wants it big. The right would limit it to correcting market failures. Now, though, they are finding common ground in a new concept: the venture capitalist state.
Vaccine rollouts in the U.K. and the U.S. demonstrated that governments can be both big and deeply capitalistic. Operation Warp Speed in the U.S. saw an initial $10 billion in federal funds committed to seven pharmaceutical companies for speculative drug development. Similarly, Britain’s Vaccine Taskforce provided £900 million ($1.2 billion) of upfront cash commitments for a portfolio of untested jabs.