What if there is a technology that could be invented, that would improve our lives dramatically, but wouldn't necessarily be profitable, or worth the risk? This is where government could actually be effective, not by picking winners and losers, but simply by allocating an obscene amount of prize money for certain things. Like a cure for cancer, or vehicles that run on renewable energy, or spaceships that can carry people to Mars, etc and etc... Make the prize obscene, like $10 billion or something, but then have the stipulation that there be no patent, that the info be owned by all, so that businessmen could then find the most efficient form of delivery of that product. Or, if it's something you could do yourself, everybody could do it for themselves.