Chris you are asking for a "free market" in ideas.

We have elections and that is one important market place but the choice is limited and we are not really choosing from different ideas but we tend to choose on the basis of "character" and trust.

One place where we can choose ideas is through market places in infrastructure. To give you an example we do not get to choose how we generate our energy. We get some limited choice in how and where we purchase our energy but we have no say in the direction of investment dollars in how the energy is produced.

The way to give choice in many areas be it schools, health, transport, energy, food production, is to give more people investment dollars and let the people "vote" for the ideas as encapsulated in the way the resources are spent on infrastructure.

Instead of giving millions of dollars to the car industry directly give millions of dollars to those in society who are willing to think about where best to invest funds in car transport. Now let the car industry (or others with ideas like converting existing cars to electricity) compete for the infrastructure dollars.

This is a better system than some adviser in the prime minister's department thinking about how to solve problems and thinking of the political of the implementation. That is, let governments set objectives but let a market place decide on the ideas to best achieve the objectives. Governments spend too much time on the details of implementation and not enough on the policy.