[vulturesrow]

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Exactly. Part of the reason people have silly responses, though, is that we really don't know the answer to this question.

Generally speaking, we have pretty good reason to believe that economic growth comes from increasing labor productivity and, especially, technological advance. But this implicates the next question: How do you get a better workforce and, more puzzlingly, how do you foster technical innovation?

To the chagrin of many on this board, the people in economics and political economy who study this nowadays seem to agree on one thing: It is not by minimizing the role of the state in the equation and letting the market solve the problem.

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Thats sort of a broad statement. I think its more accurate to say that most that study this agree that government has some role, but I think the extent of that role is still to be determined.