What do people here think of Progressive Taxation I for one

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I'm not sure that is the best argument given that the more socialized countries in Europe ARE actually producing a lot of scientific breakthroughs. Read enough Phyorg and New Scientist articles and you'll see that it's more Europe (fairly socialized overall) and China producing the notable scientific breakthroughs lately. The US still has its share but not nearly as you would advertise that our capitalist system would generate.

The U.S. has a social/cultural peculiarity. In this country we do not esteem theoretical people nearly as much as we should. What did Edison say? Genius is one percent inspiration and and ninety nine percent perspiration. The U.S. inherited the cream of Europe's intellectual elite courtesy of Adolph Hitler and it created a generation and a half of brilliant graduate students. But the light is fading, primarily for cultural reasons. The U.S. is not pro-theory at a significant level. We tend to look to short term goals rather than the long term big picture. So it does not surprise me that the U.S. is fading. It has little to do with capitalism per se and a lot to do with the American character. If you read -Democracy in America- by De Toqueville you can see a lot of this shining through even 170 years ago.

ruveyn

But capitalism's focus is essentially to victimize and bilk everyone else for as much as possible. It's not exactly a system conducive to anything BUT the study and implementation of ways to make money NOW rather than innovate and generating a long burn income.

Though, I think what Tocqueville saw wasn't necessarily a lack of commitment to progress so much as a commitment to a decentralized state of operations which doesn't lend itself to a more progressive, unified approach to governance.

Businesses usually take years to become successful after starting em up and it takes both short term and long term considerations to run em. The returns aren't usually immediate so what you're saying makes no sense at all. It's not conductive to think myopically when running a business at all.

And no capitalism isn't intended to victimize or cheat people, that's crony capitalism which is what happens when the government cooperates with businesses rather than keeping em in check and enforcing anti-trust laws and such. In capitalism, the customer is always right. Reality shows wouldn't be so big if the masses weren't into such dumb s**t like that.

I agree with ruveyn, it has to do with western culture embracing practical knowledge over theoretical knowledge rather than the system itself. It's a cultural issue not a systematic issue. Extroversion tends to be favoured more so than introversion too.

What a Huffington Post writer wrote on his wall about the recent sale of Huff Po to AOL:

I think we are beyond the DIY age of scientific breakthroughs. In terms of theory, most all of the low hanging fruit has already been taken. What's left are difficult problems that require high levels of funding. Pure capitalists who are solely interested in making money aren't going to persue the hard problems as there just isn't a big enough payoff to effort ratio. I mean, there still is philanthropic funding of basic research, but it's mostly donr as matter of principle. I don't think the payoff is nearly as easy as it used to be.