The years 1945-1988 are exactly the years of the Cold War as well. It seems likely to me that much of our innovation did not come from corporate research labs a

The years 1945-1988 are exactly the years of the Cold War as well. It seems likely to me that much of our innovation did not come from corporate research labs alone, but from government and defense spending. And defense spending was not just bullets and band-aids, but also basic research. (My favorite example is the Lambda the Ultimate papers were paid for by the Office of Naval Research.)