The Providence Journal article on RIPEC’s annual business-climate event focuses almost entirely on the presentation of “urban analyst” Aaron Renn, who had this frustrating, unnecessary, and probably counterproductive advice:

New businesses, he advised, generally don’t spring up from nowhere, but instead come from what’s already here. …

“I think the challenge for us is to create plans that are culturally resonant with the state,” Renn said. “I do think there’s an element of advancing the culture, evolving the culture, but the reality is: Cultural change is so difficult. We have to work with the culture and place, and I say the ‘deep history’ because the founding ethos of a place stamps the culture permanently.”

That first line is worth a chuckle, because I agree with it completely.  Only, I don’t think it’s within the competency or, frankly, the moral role of a bunch of ruling-class manipulators to leverage the regulatory, tax, and police powers of the government in order to go about “evolving the culture” of the people to conform with their idea of “best practices.”

We do not need “to create plans that are culturally resonant with the state”; we need to get government out of the way to allow the people to make their own plans.  Only the population, which has absorbed the state’s culture and which defines where it is right now, has the competence and the right to determine what economic investments and activities accord with the interests, dreams, and advantages of our communities.

The government shouldn’t be in the business of “graft[ing] on stuff from outside,” as Renn says.  Rather, new ideas and inputs must be invited in by the people or generated internally through the freedom of Rhode Islanders to determine what would work best for them.