> Countries that neglect science become dependent on those that don’t. U.S. post-WWII dominance came from basic science investments (OSRD, NSF, NIH, DOE labs). After WWII ended, the UK slashed science investment which allowed the U.S. to commercialize the British inventions made during the war.
> The Soviet Union’s collapse partly reflected failure to convert science into sustained innovation, during the same time that U.S. universities, startups and venture capital created Silicon Valley. Long-term military and economic advantage (nuclear weapons, GPS, AI) trace back to scientific research ecosystems.
The US has an extremely entrepreneurial culture, which is why Americans are so good at building innovative businesses. In the UK, money is seen as grubby and the class system has consistently placed barriers between those with ideas and those with money. Similarly, the Soviet Union struggled to make use of its innovators due to the strictures of central planning. Australia punches well above its weight in scientific research but is unwilling to engage in any economic activity other than digging rocks out of the ground and selling them to China.
So the idea that scientific research is a limiting factor in economic growth is not general; it's specific to the US and countries with that same entrepreneurial culture.