> The reality is that there is massive state intervention in the productive economy and the free-trade agreements are anything but free-trade agreements. That should be obvious. Just to take one example: The information technology (IT) revolution, which is driving the economy, that was based on decades of work in effectively the state sector – hard, costly, creative work substantially in the state sector, no consumer choice at all, there was entrepreneurial initiative but it was largely limited to getting government grants or bailouts or procurement. Except by some economists, that’s underestimated but a very significant factor in corporate profit. If you can’t sell something, hand it over the government. They’ll buy it.

> After a long period – decades in fact – of hard, creative work, the primary research and development, the results are handed over to private enterprise for commercialization and profit. That’s Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and so on. It’s not quite that simple of course. But that’s a core part of the picture. The system goes way back to the origins of industrial economies, but it’s dramatically true since WWII that this ought to be the core of the study of the productive economy.

Can someone comment on this? I am of course aware of ARPA and DARPA but is it really as one sided as he says?