It would also be nice if they wouldn't be so hell bent in abusing the patent system or - standards in oder to ringfence their privilege and make sure that nobody can build useful products on foundations essentially paid for by the tax payer.
Is tax avoidance a failure of business then? What about the billion dollar lobbying inudstry?
“[Rentier capitalists] assert a belief in ‘free markets’ and want us to believe that economic policies are extending them. That is untrue. Today we have the most unfree market system ever created….
How can politicians look into TV cameras and say we have a free market system when patents guarantee monopoly incomes for twenty years, preventing anyone from competing? How can they claim there are free markets when copyright rules give a guaranteed income for seventy years after a person’s death? How can they claim free markets exist when one person or company is given a subsidy and not others, or when they sell off the commons that belong to all of us, at a discount, to a favoured individual or company, or when Uber, TaskRabbit and their ilk act as unregulated labour brokers, profiting from the labour of others?"
"…today, a tiny minority of people and corporate interests across the world are accumulating vast wealth and power from rental income, not only from housing and land but from a range of other assets, natural and created. ‘Rentiers’ of all kinds are in unparalleled ascendancy and the neo-liberal state is only too keen to oblige their greed.
Rentiers derive income from ownership, possession or control of assets that are scarce or artificially made scarce. Most familiar is rental income from land, property, mineral exploitation or financial investments, but other sources have grown too. They include the income lenders gain from debt interest; income from ownership of ‘intellectual property’ (such as patents, copyright, brands and trademarks); capital gains on investments; ‘above normal’ company profits (when a firm has a dominant market position that allows it to charge high prices or dictate terms); income from government subsidies; and income of financial and other intermediaries derived from third-party transactions."
Source: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru...
There's wide consensus amongst people to simplify the tax code for both corporations and individuals, and to remove big lobbying from government. The hard part is getting the political capital to get it done.
This means they should still pay taxes as necessary.
> I’ll believe it when the government makes the next iPhone, or the next electric vehicle.
> In my view, there is tremendous value in taking something existing and productionizing it so the whole world can get value from it.
The point is you can't productionize something that doesn't exist. Without the foundation of government-funded basic research and technology development, the iPhone would have been nothing. No one's saying there's no value in product development, just that it's an error to mistake that value for all the value.
For the most part, businesses don't do much if any basic research because there's no clear path to a payoff. It's simply a bad business decision. They do the last step (product development) because it's the least risky and most profitable. The exceptions are few monopolies, and they probably wouldn't have bothered without the piles of excess money and the antitrust axe hanging over their head.
Businesses (and individuals) often contribute to universities monies which are used for basic research. It becomes the university's endowment. A great deal of basic research is funded this way. Often in return the university will name the building after the donor.
The government didn't do much of anything in basic research before WW2, it was privately funded.
http://www.bu.edu/articles/2015/funding-for-scientific-resea...
> Businesses (and individuals) often contribute to universities monies which are used for basic research. It becomes the university's endowment. A great deal of basic research is funded this way. Often in return the university will name the building after the donor.
Your link doesn't seem to support your conclusion very well, but rather echoes my points:
> ...She points out that the other likely [non-government] source of research funding—industry—prefers to direct its money to projects that affect the bottom line. “Industry is focused on applied research that will result in the development of products with immediate commercial application,” she says. “But fundamental or basic research is needed in order to create the knowledge base that leads to more applied research.
> ...
> The AAAS has the data to support Waters’ concern about corporate research: 80 cents of every dollar that industry spends on R&D goes to development, and only 20 cents goes to basic and applied research, a ratio that is the polar opposite of that found in civilian science agencies.
> At BU, whose researchers study an enormous range of subjects, from the birth of frogs to the birth of planets, about 80 percent of the roughly $350 million for sponsored research received in FY 2014 (down from a 2010 peak of $407 million) came directly from the federal government, and another 10 percent originated in government grants and came to BU through other institutions, such as Harvard or MIT.
That's 90% federal funding. Why do you make such a big deal out of the remaining 10%?
> Matt Hourihan, director of the AAAS R&D Budget and Policy Program, says the notion that corporate and foundation sponsors are waiting in the wings is a comforting one, but his association’s research has found no evidence that it’s true. So far, says Hourihan, the biggest increases have come from university coffers. “Industry contributions haven’t increased appreciably, and I’m not sure we have a clear enough picture on the philanthropic front yet.”
So the government funds the bulk of basic research. The funding is declining for political reasons, but there's no evidence that private groups are picking up the slack.
> The government didn't do much of anything in basic research before WW2, it was privately funded.
And afterwards (as described in your link), the story drastically changed. Which was when much of the relevant research and technology development related to the iPhone was done.
However, in the last 10-15 years, it seems like starve-the-state politicians may be starting to change that successful formula:
> One Washington insider, an expert on US research funding ... says that “research and development funding generally does pretty well in the government’s budget process,” because the government branches agree it’s important to stay competitive in science and technology. But looming over every budget decision, this expert says, is a broader debate about what the size of the government should be and how the government should spend its limited research budget.
Sure it does:
"Before World War II, government money for research was rare, and was mostly aimed at aeronautics and agriculture studies."
> Sure it does:
> "Before World War II, government money for research was rare, and was mostly aimed at aeronautics and agriculture studies."
But that's kinda irrelevant, no? We were talking about the iPhone, and most of the relevant basic research and technology development occurred after WWII.
Is it your view that basic research activity should be reduced by 75-90%, to the level that can be sustained with private funding?
In my view, there is tremendous value in taking something existing and productionizing it so the whole world can get value from it.
It’s value add.