Manhattan Institute senior fellow (and Harvard economics prof) Ed Glaeser in City Journal:

Government has no business trying to pick winners or subsidize particular industries; the unpredictability of innovation makes that a fool's errand. Even Japan's famed Ministry of Industry and International Trade generally subsidized less successful industries. Forty years ago, one Harvard economist declared that Cambridge couldn't survive without government support for its candy industry. What a mistake that would have been. Today, the former New England Confectionary Company building houses Novartis, a major biotechnology firm.