[tovej]

It was high capital gains taxes.

That meant the optimum for corporations was to invest the money in R&D. The cost of paying dividends was too large, so the advantage gained from developing competitive products was actually worth it.

As a bonus, high capital gains taxes also fill the state's coffers, which can also be used to fund research.

But as the western world has cut taxes down down down, the behaviour of big companies shifted to short term gains: dividends and stock buybacks.

Private equity is also to blame, because they set short term performance targets that remove the incentive for long term planning. The MBAs that have been installed as executives that follow PEs favorite playbook are another issue.