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The fundamental inventions on mRNA vaccines were grant-funded academic work. But I don't know that anyone asserts that breakthrough inventions don't come from c
by yborg 5y ago
The fundamental inventions on mRNA vaccines were grant-funded academic work. But I don't know that anyone asserts that breakthrough inventions don't come from capitalism, certainly in the 19th and early 20th century many inventions were created by individual entrepreneurs, for example the Wright Brothers.
- WalterBright 5y ago> But I don't know that anyone asserts that breakthrough inventions don't come from capitalism, I hear it all the time. > certainly in the 19th and early 20th century many inventions were created by individual entrepreneurs, for example the Wright Brothers. The Wright Bros are my usual reply to such assertions. Also the light bulb, transistor, jet engines, liquid fueled rocket engines, and on and on.
- geomark 5y agoThe transistor? (at Bell Labs, the research arm of the very capitalistic company AT&T)
- redis_mlc 5y agoWell, "breakthrough inventions" are mostly funded by the government, whether military or academic. Silicon Valley's origin is closely tied to the military for example. All aviation either had military R&D funding, or they were an early customer (true for most of your examples: the Wright Brothers, and rocket and jet engines in your example. Transistor production was scaled up for the US military.) Incremental advancements and commercial production are very capitalistic though. What patent lawyers do say is that companies do invention, not individuals, which is pretty accurate these days. The reason you're hearing anti-capitalist rhetoric these days is that young people hope a Marxist government will forgive their student loans. We now have a Marxist government, but they've resisted that so far. Most young people don't even know what capitalism or Marxism are, or why Marxism has failed everywhere that it was tried.