Thị trường là gì?

DBx: Yes. And therefore designs to enrich the populace through policies such as industrial policy (chính sách công nghiệp) are not only inherently inconsistent with market economies, they necessarily eliminate genuine innovation.

Of course, industrial-policy bureaucrats can dream up new ideas that these bureaucrats then impose on their economic schemes. But no new ideas other than those that are dreamed up by, or pre-approved by, industrial-policy bureaucrats can be allowed if industrial policy is seriously to be pursued. The reason is that any new idea must be fitted into the industrial-policy scheme; if it is not so fitted yet allowed to be implemented, it will likely undermine that scheme. Actions taken in the trail of the introduction of this new idea, if these are not pre-approved of by the industrial-policy bureaucrats, cannot help but unravel great swathes of the industrial policy.

Because always in their details, and usually even in the large, genuine creativity, discovery, innovation, and change are inherently unpredictable – and because predicting in sufficient detail the full consequences of the introduction into economic processes of any new idea is far beyond the ability of the human mind – industrial policy that reliably promotes sustained economic growth for the masses is impossible. Successful industrial policy is more than unlikely. More than implausible. More than improbable. It’s impossible.

Keep this reality in mind when you next encounter a plea for using industrial policy to raise the living standards of ordinary people.