Your iPhone was made with Public Money
Private capital did not make the technology in your iPhone, your money did.
In an age of neo-liberalism, where we are told that innovation only occurs because a brave capitalist takes a dive into the abyss and emerges with new technologies and that this is the only way in which innovation happens, is broadcasted as truth. We have forgotten that most of the technologies, we take for granted, such as all those that reside within that little device in your pocket — GPS, internet, battery, voice recognition, touchscreen— was engineered by individuals on a government payroll.
I know it is hard to believe, as we have been bombarded daily with market-driven propaganda that leads us to believe that innovation can only occur within an overtly cannibalistic capitalist system, but this is false. An example I often like to use is that of the Soviet Union. The USSR in the space of 69 years, went from an agricultural peasant society to sending the first human into space as well as competing with one of the strongest nations in world history — the United States. All of this was achieved by direct government spending and investment. But no, private capital is the only place innovation occurs.
The iPhone, an Apple flagship, a phone which more than 700 million people own, has truly taken the…
