Not really though, most progress is driven by scientific or government institutions, offloaded only to private enterprise for execution, usually still heavily subsidized to cover risk.
True free market competition creates monopolies and stagnation, this is not a controversial opinion.
Well most progress in computing, software and related areas did come from private companies.
> True free market competition creates monopolies and
That’s where regulation must come in. To stop monopolies from forming or at least from abusing their position.
Anyway your suggestion is to jump straight to the monopoly phase?
If you have the government forcing everyone to buy your products regardless of their quality you have no such incentives.
And to the extent that it might be true, to what extent is that just structural? In a society with a focus on free markets, more will come from free markets, naturally.
That’s certainly true, yet 90-99% (exact percentage is debatable) of progress came from non government funded organizations.
> extent is that just structural
Generally human behavior is driven by competition. That applies to individuals (e.g. scientists) even if they work in the public sector. Large government organizations or monopolies have no such incentives.