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Originally Posted by roachboy
ace--you cannot be serious.
the arguments have been pretty straightforward---companies like cisco have assumed and benefitted from infrastructures that would not exist were it not for state funding.
if you want to make this over into a more general propostion, it'd be that neoliberals like yourself have no coherent sense of history, and so conflate the results of the past, of past actions--in this case of extensive and sustained state funding for mixed public/private sector research, the construction of institutional infrastructure, the fashioning of political power in ways that was able to sustain such funding and redirect it to other ends over time--neoliberals conflate the results of history with phenomena like rocks. neoliberals cannot address questions of infrastructure, public goods, or much of anything else coherently because they cannot deal with the past. they prefer to pretend it isn't a factor. and in the process, they simplify their way out of coherence.
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I watched the video and it is interesting.
To be clear I agree a company like Cisco has benefited from government R&D and infrastructures put in place by government. However, taken as a whole innovation, even in Silicon Valley, has had more to do with private investment and innovators, than in government investments in R&D. After WWII, the government's initial $450 million investment in microwave/radio technology is significant if equated into today's dollars, however, like we know a company like Cisco is investing about $1.4 billion in R&D per quarter. If your argument is that because of a military need, government initiating investment in certain technologies means that the government is responsible for all R&D that stems from that initial investment - I can see how our views diverge. I used Cisco as an example because I was looking at their earnings today, however, if we look at all industry by category like, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, automotive, energy, construction, agricultural, telecommunications, aeronautics, medical, etc., etc., etc., etc., government R&D is just a small drop in the bucket compared to what is going on in the private sector.