Jed, the logic you provide is that because government has initiated or built large projects they have subsidized Alfred Nobel's invention of dynamite. That is a logic used by the communist. Communism has some point in theory. Practically it does not work and the reason is that personal freedom is very important. People have taken enormous risk and discomfort for their personal freedom. This whole nation is based on peoples lack of freedom in Europe. Religious, academic or enterprise freedom are just branches of the same tree.
My point is that those inventors i mentioned and many more i know less about, had freedom to do inventions and reap the benefit. Accountability was a cornerstone for them. It is required today also. It has been many inventors less fortunate than the examples I gave you. They had to face the consequences of their failure. The problem with large piles of resources (money) owned by us all, is that nobody feels responsible. To skim government funds is ok. It often is justified with 'it does not hurt anybody'. What they mean is that it does not impact anybody direct and the state is so anynomous that nobody cares. Lack of personal freedom and accountability does create corruption. Your other statements about how government has provided has some merit. The reason is mostly that a leader in the government has seen a need and then have been strong enough to push that idea to fruition. Unfortunately some copycat with a personal agenda uses a good thing as an example to justify government taking on more and more. That has never worked and it will backfire. I have seen it first hand. Swed e n went through a period of ever increasing governmental involvement. The total result was bad. In some fields it succeeded. It ended with a big time correction in the 90s. I think you make the mistake of identifying the government as a person. It is not. In management literature there is a say 'organizations cannot make result people can'. On Jun 20, 2015 8:18 PM, "Jed Rothwell" <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote: > Lennart Thornros <lenn...@thornros.com> wrote: >> >> I agree that dynamite was used by many. >> > "Many" is not the issue. Dynamite and other explosives were used mainly by > governments, or in projects paid for by governments. Nearly every dollar > that Nobel earned came from governments. There were no other legitimate > customers for gigantic explosions. > > Dynamite sticks were used by farmers and other in the late 19th and early > 20th century, but this was on a far smaller scale. > > However, I tried to say thhose guys took the risk, they made it into a >> product they benefited from. >> > The guys who took the risk were the workers on the Transcontinental > Railroad and Wells Fargo that transported it from the east coast to > California. There were major explosions in ships and warehouses in Panama > and California, and many explosions during construction. Fortunately, Nobel > licensed his techniques starting in 1867, and this greatly reduced the > accidents. See: > > http://railroad.lindahall.org/essays/black-powder.html > > The explosives industry would not exist were it not for construction > projects such as that, and later armies and navies using tons of explosives > in warfare. The Transcontinental Railroad workers used more explosives on a > daily basis than the U.S. Army did a few years earlier during the Civil War. > >
