Government R&D is based on government income from tax, and everyone participates in that. That's not based on some rich people's whim.

The cellphones you just mentioned is largely the results of government funding. Government funding is based on the economic system, which would thrive more when the money circulates better between the people and the government in a more equal society.

"The technology used in smartphones is the culmination of decades of such research. The TRANSIT Navigation Satellite System, the precursor to the GPS, was created at Johns Hopkins University during the Cold War with funding from the Department of Defense and NASA. In 1946, the first electronic general purpose computer — which led to phones’ CPUs — was invented with funding from the U.S. Army at the University of Pennsylvania.
And the iconic touchscreen? It was initially developed in 1971 at the University of Kentucky, and improved at the University of Delaware with funding from the National Science Foundation. The research pair at the University of Delaware founded FingerWorks, which was acquired by Apple in 2005." ~ https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/14/university-research-cellphone_n_5983982.html

The internet, GPS, infant formulas, vaccines, touch screen, wind energy, etc are invented thanks to government funding.

"The Internet
Yes, you can again thank the DOD for being able to read this article right now (and, you know, anything else the Internet lets you do). In the 1960s, the military wanted to develop a communications system that was less vulnerable to attack than telephone operators’ rooms and began working on directly linking computers. The first network was called the ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) – which was the basis for the modern Internet as we know it." ~ http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Media/Slideshow/2013/03/07/10-government-funded-inventions

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/infographics/infographic.view.php?id=11358