No serious funding for scientific research would be accomplished this way.

>"rather than using the force of gov't to coerce every citizen into paying for it"

Oh please. If we're living a capitalist society, we have to realize that citizens are not incentivized to give a significant portion of their money for the improvement of society, so it's time to stop treating things as though free markets will come in and inevitably save the day without government intervention. Specifically, talking about medical research, there is no incentive for me or any other citizen to fund leukemia research, or heart disease research, and I certainly don't donate money to both causes on a regular enough basis to provide enough monetary support for this research. Unless we rethink our current economic model, this is just not a possibility.

So you're saying that you yourself contribute regularly to heart, lung, skin, eye, and bone marrow cancers? If so you're a saint, but I think most Americans do not. This is understandable - if we live in a society that encourages us to pursue individual success above others, improvement of society is not our top priority clearly.

I certainly agree the government is not an ideal re-allocator of wealth. I think it needs to be reformed. But saying "Hey this isn't ideal, so we should throw it away" is kind of silly, no?

> So you're saying that you yourself contribute regularly to heart, lung, skin, eye, and bone marrow cancers?

One, you don't necessarily need to donate to different charities for every possible disease. You could donate to a charity "fund" sort of like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

Two, I think most people don't donate a lot of money because they feel they are already contributing a lot to benefit society via taxation.

> You could donate to a charity "fund" sort of like the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

So some sort of central fund for cancer research, where bureaucrats distribute funding to constituent organizations... Hmm where have I heard that before? ;)

> they feel they are already contributing a lot to benefit society via taxation.

So you _do_ admit it is benefitting society?

> So some sort of central fund for cancer research, where bureaucrats distribute funding to constituent organizations... Hmm where have I heard that before? ;)

That's like comparing social security to a personal retirement account.

Maybe, but not necessarily.

Let's imagine a hypothetical piece of research that every single person wants, and wants enough to willingly contribute their share (per capita, or wealth/income adjusted, whatever) if that is required in order to have the research done. However, if they value the money they would be contributing more than the marginal change in the research for lack of their funding, they might rationally choose still not to contribute unless coerced to do their part.

Assurance contracts? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assurance_contracts

Example: you start a project on something like kickstarter, people contribute the amount of money they like. Then after the project reaches its goal, the research starts. If goal isn't reached then people get their money back.

That probably improves things - certainly, it eliminates the risk of "I gave and the research didn't happen anyway" - but (as typically employed) it does not eliminate the issue: the odds that my contribution will be deciding is low.

If you had a contract that required defined (possibly in terms of wealth/income) contribution from everyone and would only go if unanimously accepted, that would eliminate this problem but raises obvious logistical issues.

You mean like the forced government coercion that enables land ownership? Would managing development of farmland work best through voluntary non-profits?

I didn't actually exclude that as a possibility: the existence of non-profits is indeed part of a capitalist system.

But, I don't think a huge depth or breadth of science gets done that way.

A democratic government should seek to fund science through taxes, if that's what you're asking, yes: we collect taxes to benefit society and science provides an efficient benefit.