| | Indeed, a most excellent contribution.
The success of the computer revolution was a textbook example, a laboratory case, of why capitalism is successful. Entrepreneurship thrives in the absence of government intervention. There are no guilds and no government licensing for programmers. There is no Federal Bureau of Computing, no Software Protection Agency, no Code Code, no ROM and RAM Administration. Anyone could be a computer programmer simply by claiming to be one -- and the market sorted out the skill sets. So, computering saved the world.
Image what would have happened had President Carter been re-elected. Silicon Valley would have become Death Valley.
When you read about how Fairchild was created, and the became the parent of the "Fairchildren" you see that this has nothing to do with "government" per se and everything to do with individualism and initiative and risk and profit.
The future of 1950 -- the Gernsback Continuum -- was created by the computerists. Like many Objectivists, I give emotional support to the exploration and exploitation of space, but realistically, the goverment monopoly has been a millstone around its neck, pulling it back down to the ground. That is why there is no Moon Base, no Mars Colony, no Space Wheel. Meanwhile, we have cyberspace, a reality that evolved faster than the cyberpunk science fiction theorists could write.
SEMATECH (SEmiconductor MAnufacturing TECHnology) is a non-profit consortium that performs basic research into semiconductor manufacturing. It was conceived of in 1986, formed in 1987, and began operating in 1988 as a partnership between the United States government and 14 U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturers to solve common manufacturing problems and regain competitiveness for the U.S. semiconductor industry that had been surpassed by Japanese industry in the mid-1980s. SEMATECH was funded over 5 years by public subsidies coming from the US DoD via DARPA for a total of $500 million.
Following a determination by SEMATECH's Board of Directors to eliminate matching funds from the U.S. government after 1996, the organization's focus shifted from the U.S. semiconductor industry to the larger international semiconductor industry, abandoning the initial U.S. government-initiative.[citation needed] During the mid 90's the organization's name was changed to International Sematech to reflect its international composition and in September of 2004, changed back to SEMATECH. Nearly half of the 15 current member companies in the SEMATECH consortia are non-US corporations.
SEMATECH currently has three subsidiaries, the Advanced Technology Development Facility (ATDF) established in 2004, the Advanced Materials Research Center (AMRC), and the International Sematech Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI).
Wikipedia -- Sematech
Actually, $250 million of the original $500 million was returned to the government. (Find any other government program where that happened.) The program was lackluster at best. The industry "caught up with the Japanese" on its own. The entire intent of an "American initiiative" was abandoned in for global capitalism.
The computerists have their heads screwed on right.
Now, we just need to bring the rest of the world along.
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