I meant security less in the armed conflict sense, more in the less vulnerable to disruption sense. It does make sense to retain a food production sector, and a manufacturing sector for important goods like pharmaceuticals - because countries are likely to prioritise themselves in times of scarcity or crisis. I agree that interdependence is good for avoiding conflict.

I do understand the allure of “we should make things again”, and the security implications of maintaining a local manufacturing capacity and workforce - but I think people from advanced economies are incredibly myopic about what it actually looks like to develop that capacity back.

It’ll be difficult for the US to compete on price with countries like China, which have a much better developed manufacturing sector and lower wages / cost of living, even with steep tariffs applied to inflate the prices of imported goods.

They’d probably have to subsidise production in the short-term, and invest heavily in capital to automate production to the greatest extent possible so as to avoid needing to ask Americans to accept lower living standards to stand a chance.

Even setting aside that it’s so unnecessarily huge, imagine having the utter contempt for others and self-importance necessary to park up on tram lines like that.

Yes, but sometimes producing for the public domain is their job. Sponsorships, grants, and other funding instruments exist for people who do work which is committed to the public domain.

Not necessarily? You’d retain first-to-market advantages, particularly where implementation is capital-heavy - and if that’s not enough you could consider an alternative approach to rewarding innovation such as having a payout or other advantage for individuals or entities which undertake significant research and development to emerge with an innovative product.

I think the idea that nobody would commit to developing anything in the absence of intellectual property law is also maybe a bit too cynical? People regularly do invest resources into developing things for the public domain.

At the very least, innovations developed with a significant amount of public funding - such as those which emerge from research universities with public funding or collaborative public-private endeavours at e.g. pharmaceutical companies - should be placed into the public domain for everybody to benefit from, and the copyright period should be substantially reduced to something more like five years.