[LuckE2Bhere]

Clearly government has had a successful role in driving technological advances (such as the development of the internet, and the space program, which generated "astronomical" returns on investments in basic science, at least in the mid-20th century), but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a decent economist who could argue with a straight face that governments tend to be better venture capitalists than the "free markets" (which don't really exist in the modern era).  Without getting into a rat-hole debate, many would argue that "governmental investment" often crowds-out (or at least delays) private investment, with the classic example being "if the government had funded and prescribed the development of the cell phone, we'd all still be carrying 20 pound briefcase phones instead of iPhones!".

Of course, the truth is that while the vast majority of us support societal ethics such as a "social safety net" (albeit with great debate re: its size, etc.) it is extremely difficult to decide when the government should and shouldn't "compete" with its citizenry or tell the market what it should want.  I find it interesting how often blatantly self-interested people (frequently leveraging political tools, instead of physical or financial resources, to garner somewhat different benefits) decry the pursuit of self interest among others.

My apologies if I'm straying too far from the academic theories of Economics (and it the realm of "politics"), but one of the seminal insights of Friedrich Hayek, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, was well summarized in the following quotation: "Profit is the signal which tells us what we must do in order to serve people we do not know. By pursuing profit, we are as altruistic as we can possibly be, because we extend our concern to people who are beyond the range of personal conception."  Again, I'm not suggesting that the pursuit of profit is the answer to all questions, but until I am appointed Benevolent Dictator, market forces remain one of the best resource-allocating "voting machines" we've got ;-)

[LuckE2Bhere]

Clearly government has had a successful role in driving technological advances (such as the development of the internet, and the space program, which generated "astronomical" returns on investments in basic science, at least in the mid-20th century), but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a decent economist who could argue with a straight face that governments tend to be better venture capitalists than the "free markets" (which don't really exist in the modern era).  Without getting into a rat-hole debate, many would argue that "governmental investment" often crowds-out (or at least delays) private investment, with the classic example being "if the government had funded and prescribed the development of the cell phone, we'd all still be carrying 20 pound briefcase phones instead of iPhones!".

Of course, the truth is that while the vast majority of us support societal ethics such as a "social safety net" (albeit with great debate re: its size, etc.) it is extremely difficult to decide when the government should and shouldn't "compete" with its citizenry or tell the market what it should want.  I find it interesting how often blatantly self-interested people (frequently leveraging political tools, instead of physical or financial resources, to garner somewhat different benefits) decry the pursuit of self interest among others.

My apologies if I'm straying too far from the academic theories of Economics (and it the realm of "politics"), but one of the seminal insights of Friedrich Hayek, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, was well summarized in the following quotation: "Profit is the signal which tells us what we must do in order to serve people we do not know. By pursuing profit, we are as altruistic as we can possibly be, because we extend our concern to people who are beyond the range of personal conception."  Again, I'm not suggesting that the pursuit of profit is the answer to all questions, but until I am appointed Benevolent Dictator, market forces remain one of the best resource-allocating "voting machines" we've got ;-)