Government Science Is an Oxymoron
23rd October 2025
Donald Trump has been criticized heavily for cutting federal funding of science. Opponents claim that his decision threatens to undermine American innovation, weaken the nation’s economy, and diminish its global influence. Yet the assumption behind these complaints is rarely examined. It is taken for granted that the government must play a central role in supporting science if society is to progress. A closer inspection of historical experience, economic reasoning, and the actual dynamics of research reveals that this assumption is false.
Innovation has flourished without state patronage, and government support often politicizes science, crowds out private initiative, and undermines the very progress it is supposed to promote.
The conventional argument for public support rests on the idea that science is a public good. Because knowledge is said to spread widely, with benefits that cannot be fully captured by one individual or company, economists and policymakers have long argued that private actors will underinvest. In the twentieth century, this reasoning took a more formal shape in the so-called linear model: government funds basic research, which then produces applied technologies, which in turn drives economic growth. This model justified the expansion of government patronage after the Second World War and has been invoked ever since to defend public spending on science.
Yet the historical record undermines this theory. During the Industrial Revolution, Britain devoted little public money to civil science, yet it became the most inventive society on earth. The United States, likewise, relied on private initiative and by the early twentieth century had overtaken Europe as the world’s most technologically advanced nation. By contrast, France and Germany—both of which systematically funded research through their governments—failed to converge with the leading economies. Their per capita incomes and levels of industrialization remained lower, despite their extensive state programs. If government support were truly indispensable for innovation, these results would not have occurred.