Guy Rundle so often says what I am thinking. This is part of what he has to say about the Turnbull Government's recent 'innovation statement' for Crikey. I note it here mainly so I will always be able to find it.

"The final problem for those imagining they can revive old-fashioned capitalist growth from an innovation economy is the trickiest -- technical innovation now points in a post-capitalist direction. As m'colleague Keane noted, Big Media/Big Copyright are the least innovative groups around, still interested in things they can "channel", rather than spread via networks (you can't put a tollgate on a network. Canals -- i.e. channels -- are what tollgates were invented for). But it's not just Big Media. The more innovation shifts us towards zero-cost production and innovation, the more that the entire edifice of capitalism becomes a mere rent-seeking process -- in the same way as the once productive edifice of feudalism became a rent drag (via land) on capitalism in the 19th century.

"Thus, the day the innovation statement was announced, Tesla announced the release of its new battery, which will allow for the storage of renewable home-generated energy. So an end to jokes about whatcher gonna do with yer panels when the sun don't shine, ha, ha. The clue to the intent of this development is in the name -- Nikola Tesla has become the patron saint of post-capitalist development occurring within the capitalist frame, because he proposed a system of unmeasurable electricity distribution, and was stymied and ruined by nascent Big Electricity. Turnbull and others believe that this trick -- the Edison trick -- can be repeated in our era. It's the Edison process -- develop idea; build it; take to market; $$$$ -- that they're relying on here.

"But it's not going to happen that way again, and the degree to which that's not happening, or unhappening -- the degree to which the value substructure of capitalism is being undermined by genuine innovation -- is now so fast that current governments must regard it as present opportunity and challenge not a future one. Otherwise "innovation" policy will simply be misplaced, as this one is -- a money spray across a rent-field. Everyone -- from one-note classical liberals, to communists who want a massive re-up investment in technology for human liberation -- can see this is a farce waiting to go on. The only people who believe in it are the political caste, who need to be seen to look busy, and who will be looking for corporate boards to be on in a decade or so's time. Very innovative indeed."