The creation and use of new technology is fenced off 

 from general economic activity. Each sphere proceeds 

 more or less on its own. Organizational structure 

 and the overall planning process continue to reflect 

 the fact that science and industry are still largely 

 separate worlds, coexisting rather than interacting. 



American R&D, on the contrary, is more closely 

 coupled to other subsystems of society. Science for 

 science's sake has not been an aim of public policy. 

 Rather, like everything else, science should pay off 

 if it is to merit public support. In government 

 agencies, R&D is not considered in isolation but as 

 part of their broad mission. In industry, management 

 works on the principle that R&D of itself is not 

 enough; it must ultimately be exploited in the mar- 

 ketplace. Thus, R&D is made a component of overall 

 business strategy and operations. 



A major consequence of the greater insulation of 

 science in Soviet society is that R&D enjoys far more 

 stability and continuity in the USSR than in the US. 

 Kremlin policy makers have much more of an investment 

 mentality toward S&T as growth enterprises than their 

 American counterparts. The mode of incremental plan- 

 ning "from the achieved level" provides the Soviet 

 S&T establishment an assured and rising level of fund- 

 ing that contrasts sharply with the variability of 

 American R&D funding patterns. Neither the federal 

 government nor industry in the US is officially com- 

 mitted to a base level of funding nor to standard 

 levels of increase. On the contrary, R&D funding by 

 industry varies widely with current economic condi- 

 tions as does federal spending. In both the public 

 and private sectors the vulnerability of R&D as dis- 

 cretionary outlays makes difficult the formulation of 

 durable science policies. In addition, the Soviet 

 practice of institutional bloc funding, as opposed to 

 the American system of project funding, makes for 

 much greater stability at the level of the R&D per- 

 former . 



At the same time, this high degree of stability 

 characteristic of Soviet science exacts its price. 



305 



