The Importance of Government Spending

People forget that locking research slows down progress, while publicizing research speeds up progress. If it's locked, then it's easier to make a profit because you can control who has access -- but mostly that means other people can't use it, and may wind up reinventing the wheel or not being able to move forward. If it's public, then profit may be harder, but the information gets used more and often leads to further developments. So if you want to make as much money as possible, then you lock down the ideas, and that puts a serious drag on development. If you want to make as much progress as possible, then you publicize discoveries and encourage people to build on each other's work, and look for profit opportunities from those downline developments.

Profit and progress are not mutually exclusive in this context, but they do point in different directions with different actions powering them. It's usually a good idea to look for a balance, or a slight inclination, rather than maximizing either -- because if you push one too far, the other can collapse on you. I generally like to see the government doing a lot of pure research or semi-practical research in areas that are useful but costly, then publicizing the results for anyone to use. Meanwhile I want the business field to ferret out things that can be made profitable in the short to medium term, and I'm okay with private ownership of ideas so long as that doesn't harm people or the world.