Maybe Zhang Yiming and Colin Huang are better examples? If not, there are plenty more. The fact is that extreme centralized economic planning is the enemy of innovation.
This is a common legend, but it's hard to accept. China is way more innovative than much of Europe for example. The USSR was actually an extremely innovative place as well.
Also, huge corporations are themselves extremely centrally planned, and that is where much of their strengths lie. There's a reason why Apple was able to capitalize on the smartphone, and it wasn't some market of suppliers.
The problem with centralized planning is that it tends to ignore many local concerns, often with disastrous consequences, especially when leaders start to ignore any feedback from below in their central planning. This has caused the downfall of innumerable companies in various markets, but there is usually another company to take their place. When used by countries, it causes famines and other avoidable disasters, as happened in much of the USSR and China, especially under Mao's monstrous regime.
But when done right, as it was in China after the 90s and before the Pooh, it has also caused the single biggest reduction in poverty in world history, measured by number of people.
> when leaders start to ignore any feedback from below in their central planning. This has caused the downfall of innumerable companies in various markets
this is called genba-ron (現場論) in japanese, and is part of the 3 g's (Gemba, Genbutsu, Genjitsu) that you learn in manufacturing (but can be applied genrally as well)
basically you cant dictate things from afar but must empower those on the ground (genba) because only they see the actual things (genbutsu) going on and the actual results (genjitsu) of policies...
I think you meant WAS more innovative because it was opening up AND was becoming less dependent on central planning. Then Xi came along and single-handedly ruined nearly everything including the One China Two Systems policy that was carefully laid out by Deng Xiaoping.
Imo as you've mentioned if a leader like Xi, a Mao regressionist, didn’t take power and instead someone like Jiang Zemin took it, China would have likely passed the US in innovation by now.
to be fair the backbone of the economic engine, real estate sprawling and the "hustle corruption" (really low wages integrated by bribes) and other cancerous issues were literally crearted/reinforced by jiang zemin / hu jintao. XI tried too late to change some things like education for profit (with political objectives) but his approaches were stupid and looked more like a political stamp down on rivals economic bases leaving the country to suffer
> China is way more innovative than much of Europe for example
Of course they are, having built upon stolen EU and US tech and having trained their people in the West. But they learn fast and incrementally improve those designs. The difference is the Russians had their very own designs. Even in electronics, their concepts are fundamentally different from western concepts.
> having built upon stolen EU and US tech and trained their people in the West. But they learn fast and incrementally improved those designs.
its the way for many successful countries... the u.s stole tech and ignored patents from england/europe to a great result, same with korea and japan and taiwan (with regard to "the west") etc... its not unusual
Yea this is true, it’s just annoying that they do that and then boast as if it’s their own technology while screaming about the virtues of their State, which, is inarguably inferior on this particular point given that in order to advance in technology they must acquire it from superior economic systems.
Of course, all innovation is built on copying and improving others' ideas. Calling this "theft" is as absurd as saying that the Greeks "stole" mathematics from Ancient Egypt, or that Renaissance Europe "stole" natural philosophy from the Islamic world (who in turn "stole" it from the Greeks etc).
In the era there is no royalty system at all. The moment royalty was introduced, it was unfair, unequal, already with a clear economy and political agenda.
China’s population is double that of Europe, so China would need to produce twice the quantity of innovation to be comparably innovative. I’m not saying it doesn’t achieve this, but we should be wary of comparing two places with vastly different populations.
> But when done right, as it was in China after the 90s and before the Pooh, it has also caused the single biggest reduction in poverty in world history, measured by number of people.
This was largely China moving away from a planned economy and toward a more market oriented economy. Also, you have to take care about how you measure “largest reduction in poverty” here as well because poverty was declining all over the world at the same time, largely driven by advancements from the capitalist west and globalization. I’m sure economic planning can be credited with something, but the key element was “allowing western money to pour into the country” which looks a lot more like capitalism than central planning to my eyes.
> This was largely China moving away from a planned economy and toward a more market oriented economy.
Possibly, though they still retained much more control than the capitalist economies they outgrew.
> Also, you have to take care about how you measure “largest reduction in poverty” here as well because poverty was declining all over the world at the same time, largely driven by advancements from the capitalist west and globalization.
That is not true. The rest of the world outside China has remained at the same or worse poverty levels, largely.
> I’m sure economic planning can be credited with something, but the key element was “allowing western money to pour into the country” which looks a lot more like capitalism than central planning to my eyes.
If China had played by free market rules, Huawei, Alibaba and Xiaomi would not be competing with Samsung, Apple or Amazon right now. A large part of China's advantage came from the state using its negotiating power to force foreign companies to trade their IP for cheap manufacturing, thus propelling China's intellectual elite back from the dark age that it had been plunged into. Individual Chinese companies probably lost profits for a long time because of this, and much more US, Japanese or European money would have pourn in if they didn't enforce this policy; but, they would be much poorer today.
Edit: note that China is and has always been a capitalist country. They were centrally planned state capitalists, and have moved somewhat in the direction of free market capitalism. But there has never been a period in China's history when production or wealth were democratically controlled.
"The rest of the world outside China has remained at the same or worse poverty levels, largely."
This largely is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Specifically, many countries in southeast Asia, geographically close to China but using different societal models, have grown much, much richer since 1950.
South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia have nowadays much higher living standards than they used to have.
