Something I tell libertarians that a few of us lefties could stand to hear...

[cthulu2016]

3. Inventions have effect within their economic framework

Modern chemistry is not separable from an economic system. The German dye-works were not charities, nor were the arms makers.

Western capitalism created modern industrial chemistry. The elements had had the same properties for billions of years before man even existed. Modern industrial chemistry springs up in the USA and Europe during the 19th century.

To say that capitalism was not the chief driver of progress for the last few centuries seems almost perverse to me. Akin to saying that Christianity eliminated slavery. (In the sense that Christianity had 1800 years to do so and did not, whereas after the enlightenment when the educated classes started taking religion somewhat less seriously there is an inexorable moral progressivism.)

But I do realize that different people think different things.