In today's world, the rich are the ones that drive innovation, because,
they are the risk takers and the ones who can finance a project. Most innovators are not producing things that will revolutionize an industry, and in reality, those innovators are just being resourceful in finding solutions to immediate needs, such as, how to cross a river to get to the other side, in which case, one gets a boat or builds a bridge, where both solutions are not "innovations".
Innovations are where an industry is impacted towards doing things in entirely different ways or in ways that save a lot of money or make people's lives more efficient.
The people who have the dough, are the rich and powerful, and those who know how to get the funding for a project. Without those people, the U.S. would still be back in the horse-and-buggy era of economics. I may come up with an idea or a whole new invention, but, if I don't have the means to fund a project to get that innovation off the ground, it's just going to stay locked away inside my mind. Uncle Sam might be able to fund a project, but then, it's not a free-market method, which will always be the most efficient, where the investors and inventors know best how to develop and implement and grow that idea into a business. Government doesn't know how to run businesses, and what they do best, is waste our resources and our time, and put up barriers with huge numbers of red-tape and regulations.
