"I believe that the single most important reason why prosperity spread, and why it continues to spread, is the transmission of technologies and the ideas underlying them. Even more important than having specific resources in the ground, such as coal, was the ability to use modern, science-based ideas to organize production. The beauty of ideas is that they can be used over and over again, without ever being depleted. Economists call ideas nonrival in the sense that one person's use of an idea does not diminish the ability of others to use it as well. This is why we can envision a world in which everybody achieves prosperity. The essence of the first Industrial Revolution was not the coal; it was how to use the coal. Even more generally, it was about how to use a new form of energy. The lessons of coal eventually became the basis for many other energy systems as well, from hydropower, oil and gas, and nuclear power to new forms of renewable energy such as wind and solar power converted to electricity. These lessons are available to all of humanity, not just for the first individuals who discovered them."
(Jeffrey Sachs, "The end of poverty", chapter "The spread of economic prosperity").
This reminds me of the lyrics of the song "Au temps des colonies" by Michel Sardou:
"Y'a pas d'café pas de coton pas d'essence
En France mais des idées ça on en a
Nous on pense"
More seriously, this is a strong argument against patents, which try to prevent people from using freely some people's ideas, a concept which I have never liked.