G Alston,
I would be willing to bet that the same outcomes we all desire could be achieved by the government announcing that it had goals X,Y,Z in certain areas and the person/team that achieved those goals would have the right to profit from them for a set number of years without taxation.
From what I hear you saying, you’re making the case that there are “public goods” that only the government can provide directly, but I would argue that while there are “public goods”, the government can probably best provide them indirectly through incentives like tax moratoria.
In the examples and eras you cite, capital markets were definitely not as well-developed as they are now, primarily due to lack of communications infrastructure. With today’s capital markets, I think the government would do better to provide those indirect incentives and let the market allocate capital to the actual projects meant to achieve the goals.
