>There are some fairly intense tradeoffs though, it seems all of the best places in the world when it comes to social safety nets are generally not the places the innovation is coming from. Where they provide a social safety net, they seem to somehow lack the incentive structure necessary to foster really new ideas.

There have been plenty of tech startups in Northern Europe, which is reputed to have the best social safety-nets on Earth right now. They also have some of the best academic institutions in scientific subjects.