Will R&D flourish if Government reduces spending?

In a repeat of a repeat of Counterpoint program of 26 May 2008, "British scientist Terence Kealey proposes that there would be more innovation if government stopped funding science. Looking at the history of technology he argues that progress has almost always depended on freedom, free markets and free societies."

This program is an amalgam of astute observations of human history and 'free market' ideological claptrap.

He cites and OECD statistic that claim that for every $1.00 the government invests in Research and Development (R&D) the Private sector withdraws $1.25.

Even if that statistic can be proven to be true, it still begs the question as to whether $1.25 invested by the private sector will yield to society the same value as $1.00 invested by the public sector.

An obvious example where $1.00 invested by the Government will be worth vastly more than $1.25 invested by the private sector would be open source software, which drives the Internet. Much of the funds for software development came from the public purse in various ways including through Universities.

Without having the figures at my fingertips, it is widely recognised that the numbe of free open source Apache web servers is vastly greater than the number of Microsoft's expensive proprietary IIS webserver, so on that basis alone, it can easily be shown that, in this case the public gained a great deal more for every $1.00 spent by the government than it would have gained from $1.25 spent by Microsoft.

One issue on which Terence Kealey appears to be correct is his condemnation of the patent systems. He pointed out that the patent for powered flight, possessed by supposed aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright, who made the first powered flight in 1906, actually prevented the US from developing an aviation industry until after the commencement of the First World War in 1914, because everyone who subsequently attempted to build and airplane had a patent suit filed against them by the Wright brothers.

Patents were effectively abolished in the US aeronautical industry and, contrary to what the defenders of patents system would have us believe, the industry flourished.