"What the U.S. system did was to democratise invention and innovation"

"The problem we have globally and historically is that innovation has usually occurred as a one-off, maybe as a flash of brilliance, but it hasn’t been able to be sustained or consistent because for most of human history and in most places in the world today, the conditions were not present to enable an investment in sustained and transformative innovation. ... What the U.S. system did was to democratise invention and innovation, to say we’re going to make rights available to anyone who can do something innovative and allow them to invest themselves, not as a hobby, not as a sideline, but as a living. ...

"[F]ive distinguishing features ... make the U.S. unique:

• the American economic approach enables risk taking and failure, fosters competition and ensures goods and services can cross state lines, 
• provides property rights, 
• is based on the rule of law, and 
• establishes markets.
• mobilising resources and making them available for investment in new areas

“You have to set those conditions where you can access all of that private capital. And then you can use it for the high risk, the high-end deliverables that really change the world. You know, those technologies for energy that are going to tackle climate change, the new cures for HIV and cancers, the new modes of food production that will, you know, feed 8 billion plus and growing people around the world.
    "The rule of law in the United States has allowed markets to operate effectively and with dynamism because 'it took all the friction out of the system.' ... When we fail to provide rule of law whether it’s in a store or at the border or in intellectual property then the system starts to break down and we don’t have those dynamic benefits of a market economy.”

~ Patrick Kilbride in conversation with Gene Quinn on 'The Case for Market Economics, Innovation and Rule of Law'