Quotation of the Day…

(Don Boudreaux)

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… is from page 276 of Matt Ridley’s excellent new (2020) book, How Innovation Works: And Why It Flourishes in Freedom:

The same is true of America, which became the most advanced and innovative country in the world in the early decades of the twentieth century without significant public subsidy for research and development of any kind before 1940. The few exceptions tend to confirm the rule; for example, the government heavily subsidized Samuel Langley’s spectacular failure to make a powered plane, while wholly neglecting the Wright brothers’ spectacular success, even after they had proved their point.