Evan;

The short answer is political structure. Even today the European nations as well as others are becoming more like the United States in political and economic structure. Many books can be written on this subject. In reality, the United States has been very innovative since its beginnings and did make some notable contributions to the Industrial Revolution early on.

One American whom I will cite was Eli Whitney, who invented the Cotton Gin in 1794. Additionally, he was the Father of Mass Production. It 1798 he began manufacturing muskets with interchangeable parts. Up until that time all muskets were hand made and parts were not interchangeable. Spinning and weaving machines as well as the steamboat were early inventions from the United States.

You must look at the cheap labor and how workers were exploited to the advantage of owners and government. That in itself would consume several books. As each wave of immigrants arrived from different parts of the world a new labor force was made available. In many cases those that were working were displaced by a new labor force willing to work for less money. Read the book The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, for a great description of American Labor. You will see what the company store was all about. Why did unions develop?

Today, 25 % of the exports of the United States come from Silicon Valley, a small region South of San Francisco. Many innovations have been developed in this area going back to the early 1900’s when the first radio commercial broadcast station was on the air. Since then we have seen Hewlett and Packard who began in a small garage in Palo Alto, in 1939 as well as others make a mark on technology. A good measure of this is due to institutions of higher education as well as climate, in its many forms.

Tom