ABSTRACT
A major risk in the case of public monopoly over the social learning and selection processes connected with technological development is that the latter will be prematurely closed. Awareness of this risk should be reflected in policy and institutional arrangements. Policy-makers may be reluctant or unwilling to risk the immediate threat to employment and business interests which radical energy policies designed to vigorously stimulate alternative energy developments would entail. The chapter outlines several policy proposals and normative principles which are suggested by the research results. As R. R. Nelson and R. N. Langlois stress, policy must recognize uncertainty-and the different forms of uncertainty-as a fact of life, and should not try to repress it or analyze it away. Learning and unfolding process must be carried through by diverse actors who possess essential technical, economic and socio-political knowledge and capabilities and who collectively work out the new technology and the socio-technical systems.
