About innovation..................

From a recent Schumpeter essay, which is really a book review of Mariana Mazzucato's book, The Entrepreneurial State

Americans have traditionally been divided between Jeffersonians (who think that he governs best who governs least) and Hamiltonians (who favor active government).  The secret of the country's success lies, she thinks, in talking like Jeffersonians but acting like Hamiltonians.  Whatever their rhetoric, governments have always invested heavily in promoting the spread of existing technologies such as the railways (by giving the rail barons free land) and in seeking potentially lucrative scientific breakthroughs (by financing almost 60% of basic research).