Smart people might work on sexy projects like fighter planes and space rockets for ordinary wages, but semiconductors or light bulbs or the plumbing of e-commerce probably have to be developed by entrepreneurs.
I don't agree that this is the case. Many smart people don't see the need to be rewarded in a financially appropriate way. (Those that do make their way into finance or startups eventually). Look at institutes such as the CSIRO in Australia for science/technology in general or the BBC for broadcasting technology.
I agree with you that many smart people work for ordinary wages. But the point seems to be to ask the question: is "many", enough to keep an economy growing optimally?
Great Depression[1] : 25% unemployment, thus roughly 75% employment.
Many people were employed, but were enough people in a job?
The BBC's a good example, how long have they been working on their own Dirac codec? That's taxpayer's money they're spending. Sure it probably makes a few geeks happy but remember - these geeks know fully well that if they tried to do that outside the safety of the BBC, they'd starve. At the end of the day, in the private sector you get stuff done because if you don't you don't eat.
You seem to be implying that the BBC's Dirac work has produced no useful results; I would disagree. Sure, it's not the format-of-choice of BitTorrent users, and it hasn't cropped up in the endless discussions of the <video/> element in HTML5, but that doesn't mean it's vanished. A subset of Dirac colloquially called Dirac Pro has been standardised by the SMPTE as "VC-2" (Windows Media Video was VC-1):
you missed the point. in the private sector you don't need to justify costs back and forth to each other...either the product is wanted at its current production costs or it isn't. would it be used if consumers had to pay the full cost of its development? or do they only use it because those costs were offloaded to the taxpayer and it can essentially be given away?
you are missing that Beeb IT was "outsourced" to Siemens, which in turn has a patent-tech X agreement with MS: no place for free (as in freedom) vendor lockin-free tech here...
you are missing that Beeb IT was "outsourced" to Siemens, which in turn has a patent-tech X agreement with MS: no place for free (as in freedom) vendor lockin-free tech here...
I don't agree that this is the case. Many smart people don't see the need to be rewarded in a financially appropriate way. (Those that do make their way into finance or startups eventually). Look at institutes such as the CSIRO in Australia for science/technology in general or the BBC for broadcasting technology.