Reddit mentions of American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper

> Businesses drive research, not government.

Business invests in research when there is a clear, short time horizon profit opportunity (the next iPhone). Business does not invest in "moonshot" projects. It's too risky for them and they may not be the only ones who profit.

Basic (fundemental) government research funded/invented these:

• Internet? (ARPANET)
  
  
• Global Positioning System
  
  
• Large Scale Integrated Circuits (the space program).
  
  
• Digital communications? (the space program).
  
  
• Vaccines like small pox & polio.
  
  
• Public health programs to require people be vaccinated.
  
  
• Electricity grid
  
  
• Interstate highway system
  
  
• Mandatory primary (then secondary) public education.
  
  
  
  Most (if not all) information on the above can be found in American Amnesia (my current read).

Your "wild goose chase" entails 3 seconds of Googling, but I would recommend Hedrick Smith's Who Stole the American Dream. There's a helpful timeline associated with the book here. Here's part of it:

>August 1971—Corporate attorney Lewis Powell sparks a political rebellion with his call to arms for Corporate America. Circulated by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Powell’s memo warns that anti-business attitudes and government regulation are threatening to “fatally weaken or destroy” the American free enterprise system. Powell declares that business must arm itself politically, battle organized labor and consumer activists, and mount a long-term campaign to change the balance of power and policy trends in Washington.

>1971–1972—The CEOs of America’s biggest corporations, responding to Powell’s memo, organize the Business Roundtable, which becomes the most potent political lobbying arm of Corporate America. The National Association of Manufacturers moves its headquarters to Washington. In one decade the U.S. Chamber of Commerce doubles its membership and the National Federation of Independent Businesses (small business) grows from 300 to 600,000 members.

There's also some great stuff about it in Hacker and Pierson's book Winner Take-All Politics. Here's an excerpt. Also, their most recent book, American Amnesia, details the rise of the anti-government movement in the U.S.