
Top Ways to Kill Innovation - mingyeow
http://delphiinstitute.com/wp/?p=863
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pg
He's missing the top 2 historically: civil disorder, and excessively powerful
central governments.

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bokonist
Excessively powerful, or excessively intrusive? A government can be very
powerful, but choose not to use that power in wealth destroying ways (example:
post-Deng China).

~~~
pg
I can't think of a case where excessively powerful has not become excessively
intrusive. Even if governments don't mean to interfere in the economy, they
have to in order to protect their power, because money can be turned into
political power.

You saw this particularly clearly with Putin. Anyone whose wealth was combined
with any sort of political ambition got destroyed. He only had that problem
because he inherited some rich and comparatively untamed people from the
previous administration. You couldn't get rich in Russia today without already
being a Putin loyalist. I suspect it is the same in China.

~~~
rms
It goes beyond that you can't get rich in China without being a CCP loyalist,
it's that you can't function as a Chinese citizen in China without being a CCP
loyalist. The idea of an outspoken political antagonist of the CCP even making
it through college is laughable. An absolute rule of life under the CCP is
that you do not question the ultimate authority of the CCP to rule China.

As for as economic intrusion goes, China is really a unique case. They've
invented a new form of capitalism that works very well -- the state government
owns some companies, the state government owns shares in other publicly traded
companies, local governments own some companies or shares in companies, and
some companies have no government ownership. They all compete against each
other in the marketplace. There are 3 or 4 different Chinese state
construction companies and they competitively bid against each other for
projects.

There is indeed a meme in academic literature on China saying that their lack
of freedoms and institutions will hold back innovation. This meme never seems
to be very well sourced. Tsinghua University graduates engineers as capable as
anywhere else in Asia. So far, Chinese engineers have lacked innovation, but
if any country can prove that totalitarian rule does not stifle innovation it
will be China.

~~~
bokonist
_It goes beyond that you can't get rich in China without being a CCP loyalist,
it's that you can't function as a Chinese citizen in China without being a CCP
loyalist. The idea of an outspoken political antagonist of the CCP even making
it through college is laughable._

Every society has its heresies and enforced loyalties. We have a term in the
U.S. for heresy - "politically incorrect". In the U.S. it's hard to imagine an
outspoken proponent of human biodiversity making it very far in life. No CEO
would dare speak in favor of HBD advocate, it would open up the entire company
to lawsuits.

 _As for as economic intrusion goes, China is really a unique case. They've
invented a new form of capitalism that works very well -- the state government
owns some companies, the state government owns shares in other publicly traded
companies, local governments own some companies or shares in companies, and
some companies have no government ownership._

In the U.S. the government exacts dividends from corporations in the form of
corporate taxes, and exercises management control via regulation (OSHA, civil
right legislation, workplace rules, etc. etc.) The Chinese system of openly
owning shares is similar, but perhaps more efficient.

~~~
johnnybgoode
Speaking of which: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=834521>

