Distraction - Bruce Sterling [127]
“Thank you for that, Ron. Now we’re getting somewhere. So tell me this—why didn’t you just pull his damn funding?”
“If only it were that simple! We’re required by federal fiat to invest in basic R&D. It was part of our federal bailout deal. We’re supposed to have trade protection, and we’re supposed to catch our breath, and jump a generation ahead of our foreign competitors. But if we jump a generation ahead of the damn Koreans, our industry will vanish entirely. People will make cars the way they make pop-up toast. Proles will build cars out of bio-scrap, and compost them in the backyard. We’ll all be doomed.”
“So you’re telling me that you’ve achieved a tremendous scientific R&D success, but as a collateral effect, it will eliminate your industry.”
“Yeah. That’s it. Exactly. And I’m sorry, but we just can’t face that. We have stockholders to worry about, we have a labor force. We don’t want to end up like the computer people did. Jesus, there’s no sense to that. It’s total madness, it’s demented. We’d be cutting our own throats.”
“Ron, take it easy, okay? I’m with you here, I’m following your argument. Thanks for leveling with me. I comprehend your situation now. It fits into the big picture.”
Oscar drew a breath. “You see, Ron, the true core issue here is the basic interplay of commerce and science. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this problem recently, and now I realize that the old-style big-science game is just no longer tenable. Only savages and Congressmen could believe that science is a natural friend of commerce. Science has never been the friend of commerce. The truth doesn’t have any friends. Sometimes the interests of science and commerce can coincide for a little while, but that’s not a marriage. It’s a dangerous liaison. If you’re a working businessman, R&D can turn on you with sudden, vicious speed.”
“You got that right,” Griego said fervently.
“Ron, it saddens me to see you jerked around in this way. If you don’t want to finance R&D, that ought to be a decision properly left to the industry. You shouldn’t be compelled to take action by distant, uncaring federal bureaucrats who don’t understand the real dynamics of private enterprise. And most of all, you certainly shouldn’t have to waste your time, and mine, running sabotage mind games against a federal laboratory. That’s just a big, counterproductive distraction that puts you and me at unnecessary loggerheads. We’re serious players, Ron. People like us ought to be talking this over as mature individuals and arriving at a modus vivendi.”
Griego sighed into the phone. “Okay, Oscar. You can stop sweet-talking me now. What are you planning to do to me?”
“Well, I could out this whole ugly thing. Then we’d have investigations, and Senate hearings, and possible indictments, and the whole tiresome, unfortunate business. But suppose that never happened. Suppose that I could personally guarantee you that this guy’s miracle battery drops right off the edge of the earth. And all that costs you is a mere fifty percent of your current R&D investment.”
“I’d say that’s much too good to be true.”
“No, Ron. It’s the new order, here at the Collaboratory. You just don’t need major scientific advances in the American car industry. You’ve already had more of that than you can stand. You guys are a national historic treasure, like a buffalo herd or Valley Forge. You need protection from the menace of basic research. Instead of paying federal scientists to march your industry right off the cliff, you should be paying scientists protection money not to research your business. That’ll ensure that your industry doesn’t go anywhere.”
“That sounds so beautiful,” Griego said wistfully. “Is it legal?”
“Why not? Your sabotage routine can’t be legal, but you’ve been getting away with that for years. My proposal is a major improvement