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Sure, but that's a syllogistic non-sequitur. Norway drives innovation, the US drives innovation; either way, poor people get sharply increasing access to medical technology and services, not worse access (as an intuition of income inequality might suggest).

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Yes, even in non-equal societies people benefit greatly from innovation.But if innovation is not dependent on extreme capitalism , why attribute it to capitalism in this discussion ?

I believe one argument might go like this:

It's because the engine of all wealth in capitalism is investment. Currency gets less valuable over time. Like sharks, concentrators of wealth need to keep moving. One of the most effective ways to do that is to invest in enterprise, which is competitive, and thus generates innovation.

It's a decent argument, and the arguments about lower taxes and increased innovation sound sensible. But as I said, some high taxes countries are quite innovative.

And in the end, the role of innovation should be to help people and equality, safety net and the like have great value for many. On the whole it's hard to argue social Democratic countries offer a worst deal for people than capitalism.

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