From the conquest of the space to internet, with their huge fallout, the role of the State for the progress of science and technologies was crucial; yet the opponents strenuously dispute and deny its role.
First, in 1957, came the Sputnik. The USA felt it as a big and a bitter surprise: the rival, and possibly, the enemy, is much brighter than you thought. The USA answered quickly. Less than one year after the Sputnik, the USA Explorer 1 was in orbit. The Russian upped the ante, and in the 1961 they had a Man in Space. The USA felt that the answer had to be bigger, and NASA was created. The whole country reacted with a strong determination to overcome quickly the gap, in the very area the rival had chosen, space, which means high science.
The State was the main agent for the mobilisation of the country’s high science and technology. In 1969, eleven years after its creation, NASA sent two men to the Moon. The value of this success is even bigger that it looks. Learning about the space, and finding the way to survive into it, is just the effort that, if kept, will, in the future, save the human race from the risks coming from the continuous changes in Space, which has no interest in the survival of the human race.
However, the great work to answer to challenge was not limited to the space effort. The need was felt for a better communication system, much faster and able to move quickly a huge amount of data. That was the other part of the work, and its importance was not inferior to that for the space, it was actually important for it. A book published in 1996 by Katie Hafter and Mattew Simon “Where the wizards stay up late , the Origin of the Internet “(Simon and Shuster 1966) which tells of a large number of people from different origin : Army officers, academics and their students, lawyers , inventors, journalists , and company managers , who often exchanged position , to be where they could contribute better.
All possible doors were open to them, and also to private capital, which entered quite early in the game. William H. Janeway (Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy, Cambridge University Press, 2012) tells how companies were created to develop and market the products of every possible development step, which thrived for a while, and gave way to the next wave. Big risks were accepted even by relatively small companies, which went into projects that may be not fully successful, but opened the door to the next step. A case of coordination between State, the Military, high culture, finance, management, the capital market, not to forget the press.
A success in which State, private people and private capital worked side by side, because the objective was shared by every section of the country, and anybody who could did contribute to the success. We can conclude that the attitude of the people at large towards the State depends from the objective of each action. In the case which we quickly told up to now, the answer to the action of the rival was a shared one, be that of working to its attempt on the space, or to reinforce and modernize the communication system two converging objectives that were , one supposes , shared by all. The result was extraordinary, and very quick. However, the whole matter changes when the State operates for political objectives that the States cannot avoid, for example, equal duty and right for every citizen.
This is inevitably the main job of the State, who cannot discriminate among his citizens according to the wealth, or lack of. This is inevitably the job for the State. However, in this case the objective is not generally shared because the wealthy citizens fight to maintain their position and privileges, and their living in separate areas. The rich people are therefore in a basic negative position in front of the State, because it may reduce the power given by money. So, obviously, whenever the State is discussed a part of the population will consider it as a sort of enemy that will curtail their wealth by taxation and reduce their freedom. The matter is not the State’s efficiency in obtaining results. We have seen that the State got in a short time results that still today can be consider exceptional. The matter is that State’s movements have, normally, a political effect, which, even if the State may try to contain itself, it will never be accepted.