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NASA has invented many things, but it wasn't the profit motive that drove NASA's inventiveness. For that one, we'll have to divide credit between love of science and national pride, because the USSR was leading the space race for quiet awhile. Maybe profits drove some in America, but Russia did make the bigger bomb.
Except that America pays more public money for healthcare than almost every universal healthcare society in the world.
(and not having to worry about your family's healthcare is good to encourage entrepreneurial risk taking for obvious reasons)
If they loose control over health care, hold onto your water rights with the grip of nothing less durable than at least a diamond.
That illustrates the problem since not every one of those nations has a single-payer system. The trick is to structure the system to reward positive behavior, healthy outcomes at a reasonable price, and punish negative behavior, the current system.Except that America pays more public money for healthcare than almost every universal healthcare society in the world.
(and not having to worry about your family's healthcare is good to encourage entrepreneurial risk taking for obvious reasons)
While I deeply admire the gusto with which you have elucidated your points, I tend to mildly disagree. I cannot count the times I've said that the biggest problem with the American system is that it is a for profit business model. To my Canadian sensitivities, running a medical facility as a business is a distinct conflict of interest. That said, I'll keep my waiting lists and my hefty taxes in order to ovoid having my bank accounts emasculated if I fall ill. That said, I see this as more of an inappropriate use of capitalism but think that that is no reason to throw out capitalism altogether. Babies and bathwater come to mind.
I'm not surprised that NPR would dis business in praise of increased government largesse.
Some facts rather than internet opinion - NPR is slightly left but not very
"Slightly" v "strongly" v "slightly & continually" is a matter of perspective.
I thought I pretty clearly elaborated on why I disagree with the claim made in the title.
Your summary is incomplete.
No doubt. But it's also why I bring up Soviet Russia. If anything, I would say a profit incentive for inventiveness may have potential in those who are good at seeing problems and issues and coming up with solutions that are not necessarily practical and, obviously, will require some new product to address the problem. But, other than that, I don't see a great potential for driving artistic innovation (and, contrary, the past few decades strongly suggest is stifles artistic creativity), driving scientific innovation (so many left such strong evidence they were driven by science - or war, something that really drives inventiveness, including NASA), and of course it won't drive innovation for creating pragmatic solutions for an issue like the steam engine did. And of course we know the Romans, Egyptians, and Greeks and others were inventing stuff and probably even had inventions that have been completely lost to time. It's why I doubt this idea of profit being the best way to motivate and drive inventiveness, and see it as nothing more than Capitalist propaganda. It may drive creativeness to create menial and distractive junk, but in regards to inventiveness that had meaningful and significant impacts on society, I would have to say necessity and war are the two biggest and most efficient motivators. Throughout the duration of our history, we find time and time again, we find need and war driving innovation, with educated urban settlements being able to create more novel inventions (such as Roman plumbing and baths). Which probably creates the third biggest driver, our sense of novelty and appreciation of it.
I think you are confusing capitalism with capital investment. The difference is that capitalism is an economic system that gives all the economic decision-making power to the capital investor. And in a culture where money has come to represent well-being, that means the capital investor is making all the decision relevant to well-being based on his singular desire to maximize the return on the capital he's invested. This is an irrational and dysfunctional methodology, which is why in the wealthiest nation of Earth, the general well-being of the people living in it is declining progressively and dramatically.