First, the article is a bit of boosterism for the state, which in Slate's worldview is generally beneficent, all-knowing, wise and non-threatening.

Okay, now that my libertarian rant is out of the way ( ;-) ) here's what I think:

Actually, I look at this as one of the upsides of government, and of paying taxes. This isn't a bug, it's a feature and it should remain that way. Also, it seems to me that this surgeon fellow paid back his training through his 6-10 years of service. He should then be free to reap the rewards that come his way. I think the state will survive.

I don't necessarily know, though, that government should be moving into the realm where it's trying to capitalize on its R&D and other initiatives. They should leave that to the private sector, which is at least minimally competent at doing those sorts of things, which the government mostly isn't, in my opinion, because the true risk-reward rule doesn't apply to government and the people who run it. No patents for government-developed products and technologies, for example. That just invests far too much power in something that should be watched with a gimlet eye by all of us, at minimum.

---

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Complicated question. I have no doubt that there is a valuable role for gov't funding of things and spins offs it generates. On the other hand without a reasonable expectation of profit private enterprise doesn't work. I think we already have a system where gov't capitalizes by taxing profits made by private enterprise. BTW your colleague did he work for private or public hospital? And hosp did capitalize on app when they sold to google.

---

They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

Agreed. "The State" should handle entrepreneurial-ism going forward.

sheesh.

I'm sure there are plenty of examples of the State doing something right....and about 1,000x more of the State doing something horribly wrong (e.g. the Air Force "oops" in Texas) and about 10,000x more examples of the State needlessly wasting money.

Even a blind chicken finds a kernel of corn now and then.

---

----------------------------------------------------------------

My training

Come on now. Comparing the funding of risky scientific and engineering efforts to the administrative handling of military personnel is absurd.

I don't think anyone would argue that the power to strip rights from people should be privatized away from civilian and military courts and administrators and handed to corporations.

What do you mean by this statement? Was his student loans forgiven because of the place he worked? For example programs to reduce debt for working in a Native American Tribe health care location.

Or do you just mean he worked for a public hospital that paid for extra courses as part of their benefit plan or that they felt benefited them so they paid the costs? If so that was a business decision and they reaped the reward by his working for them.

Just trying to figure why you think he owes the state for his education.

I thought universities etc own patents on products, or as in this case sold them to a business. How do you see that as a problem assuming it was not some underhanded business transactions with bribes? The hospital may have come up with an idea, but was probably not in the place where they could develop it and sell it to others. It sounds like they received a far price what they had done.

Both you and the OP are missing the point of the article. It isn't saying the state is a great entrepreneur, it is saying the state is a pretty good innovator. Many of the innovations that have led to improving our quality of life and economy have their origins in government funded programs. But, it usually takes a pioneering private entrepreneur to turn those innovative technologies into something that truly benefits the public. It isn't one or the other but both.

Forcing the entrepreneurs to give some of that back to the government is flawed though. We pay general taxes to fund general things and we all benefit to one degree or another from government spending. Government research and development followed by technology transfer is just one of those things. What the article suggests is similar to asking someone to pay the cops after they stop a thief in your house.

I am not sure that's entirely correct that they reap the benefits back through general taxation

Look at the paradise papers and Apple and Blackstone. On the one hand they receive varying degrees of subsidies; buildings, loans and on the other they set up complex offshore tax structures to reduce their burden. I am not saying it's illegal, it clearly isn't but the state is arguably getting screwed twice, the first time it supports speculative reaearch which the private sector capitalised on (and who would not undertake the same degree of risk) and then again when it is successful through lost tax revenues. They would be better licensing the developments.

Much of the time at least for advanced academic degrees the money to pay them comes from govt. grants the person's mentor has received.

That is just more argument to fix the tax code.

There are some licences that the government does indirectly collect on. For example, the National Labs have some licences that they collect on that goes to reduce their costs.

These are things that the private sector would not undertake at their inception as the risks are to great. Specifically the risk of failure.

Pharma risk meds getting to the last stage of trials and failing.

They don't have the same ability to risk failure as the state

True, but the university is getting their work in repayment of those costs. Either TAs or RAs do valuable work to earn their small stipends and "free" education. They aren't really government gifts.

Then it's a great space for Academia. They have a longer outlook, adequate research budget and better risk appetite.

The government should not be involved in entrepreneurial activities at all. Full stop.

---

----------------------------------------------------------------

My training

Well, the problem is that this discussion has so many terms that are ambiguously defined. For instance, is "the state" really taking a risk when it spends money on research in the same way a company takes a risk when it spends money on research? In some ways the answer is yes, but in other very important ways the answer is no. It's pretty clear that gov't research isn't as risky to individual fortunes as private enterprise's risk taking. It just requires the reader to have the wisdom to know that private sector and public sector aren't fungible concepts in a blue state/red state status competition.

Making a rather simple observation, the state ends up getting 33% of all commerce (GDP) -- whether that enterprise uses state funded technology or not. That's a pretty good cut for whatever it is the state does IMO.

Beyond that I'm reluctant to feed the socialist/communist instinct here.

So who is going to fund all of this development?

---

_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

Many universities have endowments larger than the GNP of other countries. Maybe if they stopped funding transgender studies programs and instead focused on cancer research society might win.

---

----------------------------------------------------------------

My training

You do realize that many, if not most, of the universities are part of the government?

---

_____
TEAM HD
Each day is what you make of it so make it the best day possible.

You know who funds academia...........

So if academics get funding from government. Government and Academia should share the reward.

The government is involved in entrepreneurial activities. Some of these developments; GPS would be military not academic

Well we have NASA to thank for: velcro and Tang!


/r

---

Steve

Tots agree!

Anyone who received a public school education and started a company should be forced to provide an equity stake to the government! They didn’t build that!!

---

----------------------------------------------------------------

My training

NASA is also giving technology to aviation companies on ways to make airplanes more efficient, helping private space companies get to space, and a many other industries are benefitting from NASA research. Those little winglets you see on many of the newer airliners came from NASA research.