> At no point was the government itself the source of the creativity. Which makes sense, since those who create are scientists, artists, industrialists, etc. et

> At no point was the government itself the source of the creativity. Which makes sense, since those who create are scientists, artists, industrialists, etc. etc. ... not politicians and bureaucrats. No doubt, but you could just as easily have said that about the USSR and been right. The inventor of Tsar Bomba was a scientist, not a politician, after all. Does that mean a Communist planned economy is a bad way to advance science? When people are saying government needs to be involved in science it's almost never because they think the government itself should be training administrative clerks to do science and then engaging in research. It's because they want the government to ensure that our existing pool of trained scientists are tasked with doing research, either directly or indirectly.