Comment by lkrubner

And yet it is the opposite fact, strong anti-monopoly enforcement, which lead to such labs. Most big companies had big R&D efforts during the mid-20th Century, and that was because the government was unusually aggressive in its anti-monopoly efforts. Big companies couldn't simply buy small, innovative startups. Mergers were less common, and the government examined each for any possible threat to competition. Buying an up-and-coming competitor, to limit competition, was strictly forbidden. So if you wanted to be innovative, you had to build a big lab, and do all the innovation yourself.