Comment by eru

Yes, that's why I talked about Zuse's earlier work. And IBM also had plenty of private business (and would have had more).

> But I think there's general academic consensus that computing, aerospace, and biotech all progressed at rates beyond their equivalent private sector capacity due to government investment, and that the resulting progress was "worth it" in terms of returned economic and social value.

It depends on your counterfactual. If government had taxed the same funds, but spent it on something else, yes, we would have had less progress in these specific sectors.

If they had taxed and intervened less, perhaps we would have had more?

And, of course, we picked these sectors out after the fact. There's plenty more examples of failed government investments.