Progress, elite control

It occurs to me that because we live in a society where the main
institutions are necessarily controlled by the rich, who constitute an
elite minority, and furthermore that the main scientific ventures are
undertaken under their orders, there has been an unfortunate tendency to
associate elite control with scientific progress. In physics this
tendency is notably a minority one ; the general culture is relatively
liberal and anti-corporate, at least in my experience (it would be
interesting to discuss why this is, if anyone has any ideas). However in
other fields, for example space and aerospace science, the political
culture seems to be unusually open to militarism and corporatism,
probably because for a long time it has been heavily involved with the
US military-industrial complex, which is responsible for most of the
pioneering research done in these fields in the US, along with NASA as a
junior partner.

In any case, I would note that control of operations by an elite
minority, bureaucratic centralism and so on, is not a precondition for
progress, or something that is desirable. Just because the USSR
industrialized somwhat under Stalin does not make dictatorship a
desirable system. I would also note that, in all scientific fields I've
ever heard of, progress appears to go best when it is the researchers,
or designers or whoever who are making the important decisions about
what is going on, not random investors, corporate executives, government
or other bureaucrats.
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