Well, they are not the same thing but: the govt. did invest in creating the ARPANET, and the DOE still counts as one of the largest customers of supercomputers.
If the Govt. invests in new tech. areas that the private sector is unwilling/unsure of investing for the purpose of pushing the industry ahead, I don't really see anything wrong with that.
That's not the same thing, and just my point. The government didn't give Intel, Microsoft or Netscape $200M (or whatever the inflation-adjusted figure would be).
The government has dozens of ways to structure incentives without making half billion dollar investments in particular companies.
Telecom reform in 1996, for example, was a huge boon for the internet and related industries, and it didn't require picking one specific company over another.
