Look, there’s no simple way to calculate which countries are the most technologically innovative, I’ll grant that. But Bloomberg gave it a try by creating a “Global Innovation Index,” and what they discovered is that Scandinavia does quite well. If we define Scandinavia as including Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, then it’s one of the strongest regions on the planet.
Let’s break it down into groups and see where they ranked:
- Anglos
3. United States of America
11. Canada
13. Australia
16. United Kingdom
20. New Zealand
29. Ireland
Asian Tigers
1. South Korea
4. Japan
7. Singapore
10. Taiwan
25. China
27. Hong Kong
Scandinavians
2. Sweden
6. Denmark
9. Finland
14. Norway
Let’s begin with the obvious fact that Sweden scored ahead of the USA on their index. That’s a big problem for Stu Bykofsky’s thesis:
[Millennials] positive view of socialism, while a minority at one-third, is twice as high as those 65-plus.
Socialism doesn’t scare me, but I oppose it because a system that takes care of all your needs throttles initiative. I believe independence and entrepreneurship are the foundations of America.
Take a look at where most of the world high-tech innovations are born. It’s not Scandinavia.
Millennials do not share my anathema to the welfare state.
They probably think it’s a good idea. That may be the New American Character.
But it’s not mine and I’m glad I won’t be here to see it.
I’d like to point out here, for starters, that “anathema” means “curse” and not “aversion.” But vocabulary aside, three out of four Scandinavian countries score higher on the Global Innovation Index than our buddies in Canada and Australia, and all four of them do better than the United Kingdom.
Now, naturally Bykofsky can simply complain that Bloomberg used a flawed and arbitrary set of metrics. But where are his metrics? You can’t rebut something with nothing. Bloomberg ranked Sweden the strongest (4th) in a metric called Research and Development Intensity and another called High-Tech Density (5th). America ranked first in the latter category (think Silicon Valley and the Research Triangle), but it only ranked 10th in the former (think science-doubting Republican-led Congress).
In the Conservative Movement, there can be no questioning the premise that socialism stifles economic initiative and technological innovation, but the evidence suggests that the most socialist countries on Earth are doing much better than average and measurably better than the countries most like America.
I didn’t list the mainland Western European countries, but they’re pretty socialist when compared to the USA. And they are doing well, too: Germany (5th), Switzerland (8th), France (12th), Netherlands (15th), Austria (17th), Belgium (19th), Luxembourg (21st), and Italy (22nd).
Feel free to try to find other studies. I’m not going to argue that this one is the definitive answer to the question of which countries are the most successful in the tech industry, and I’ll accept any evidence you can provide as worthy of being part of the debate.
Until I learn otherwise, though, I still think it’s a problem for Bykofosky’s whole world view that Sweden ranks higher than the United States in a freaking Bloomberg study.
This knowledge, should he acquire it, will probably not improve his waning will to live.
Does the US get sole innovation credit for Google (US and Russian founders), eBay (Persian and Canadian), and Paypal (German and S.African/Canadian)?
Wonder what the innovation score is for indigenous (2nd generation or more immigrants) people compared to various other countries. Cultures, access to education, and available financial support and not land mass are likely the primary innovation drivers.
Once asked a mid-1960s, computer science, Cambridge PhD graduate why he didn’t invent a PC. His answer, “I never learned how to weld.”
There are such high costs for corruption in places like Russia, Iran and India that if you DO have a good idea, you’re better off leaving and executing that idea in a place with a functional court system.
STU has that Big egocentric problem of Exceptionalism, even when America isn’t.
“I didn’t list the mainland Western European countries, but they’re pretty socialist when compared to the USA. And they are doing well, too: Germany (5th),”
I read a post earlier this week where in Germany, 90% of
the population believes in man’s influence on current climate change, and it has been taught and shown in their schools for over a decade.
Just like Vatican City was NOT the center of the Earth, America is Not the center and only Exceptional nation on
Earth.
I love my country, and part of my love regards my country Not being perfect, but GREAT anyway.
Nationalism is what got Putin in the Ukraine, and is the main thing keeping Putin from getting his butt
kicked popularity wise with OBAMA having destroyed the RUBLE and put the Russian economy into question!
Find an enemy, any enemy, to take the local yokels attention AWAY from home!
There was nothing wrong with Soviet science, except for Lysenkoism, which could be compared with Creation Science. Russians also have first rate Computer Science (theory). Russian manufacturing was crap. To quote an expert (forgot who) on the occasion of a reporter wondering at a Russian supercomputer, “Russians can build ONE of anything.” That supercomputer didn’t top Cray’s only because the manufacturing technology (couldn’t get the transistors small enough) was lacking. Technology NOT Science. Science advances by revolution. technology advances by evolution. Given that in 1917, the Russian economy was still in the Middle Ages. Relatively, they have advanced more than we have.
BTW, we use Russian rockets to launch our satellites. We could build our own, but New democrats wanted to use cheaper Russian motors. Now we are at Putin’s mercy. As I’ve said in another thread, trade does NOT mean giving other countries a monopoly.
○ ‘The Soviet Brain Drain Is The U.S. Brain Gain’ | Bloomberg 1991 |
○ An Unusable Windfall: Israel’s Soviet Scientists | NY Times 1992 |
○ Nordic Cleantech Review [large pdf]
From your link:
Very interesting!
What the data tells me is economic systems at the level of the first world don’t have much impact either way in innovation. I’d look at other reasons.
As I mentioned in other threads: rule of law and property rights are key. The economic system is largely irrelevant.
Widespread innovation happens best when there is widespread access to infrastructure. That is why the US boomed in technology after World War II until the conservatives started worrying about how much this stuff was costing. Military spending for military priorities alone can’t keep an infrastructure going.
Limiting government expenditures to military and police gets you military and police, not technological innovation. US companies are running on fumes from the 1980s and 1990s.
But infrastructure in the conservative lexicon is defined as socialism. Mass public education, free transportation systems, and underwritten energy and communication systems have stifled initiative and taken away incentives according to them. Because socialism by definition.
And reality keeps biting them.
I didn’t read either piece, so perhaps it is answered, but “technological innovation” itself implies value. Yet, the value can be personal as in someone becomes a billionaire based on some app that doesn’t advance anything but someone’s net worth. Think Snapchat and similar apps.
In essence, the US might be more technologically innovative in tech that makes people money, but isn’t particularly valuable to the species as a whole. If the sole aim is to make yourself rich, then socialism might stifle that particular innovation.
But in a society where most people don’t have to worry about staying indoors and having access to food and water, perhaps there will be less innovation regarding getting rich and more on doing things that help everyone in mass, because in a socialist country, anything that helps your neighbor helps you, too.
Value is a very subjective concept, and trying to compare something of value to the species and something of value to a few individuals (shareholders, CEO, owner) is comparing apples to oranges.
But again, I read neither piece, so perhaps all of that is fleshed out to allow an more accurate comparison of “technological innovation”.
I didn’t read them, either, but often “innovation” is measured by patent applications or grants, which is more really of a measure of the legal system. IMHO, patents stifle innovation.
Patents do stifle some aspects of innovation, but having a functional patent system is a huge part of rewarding innovation. If you’re a brilliant young Nigerian, you’re not going to try and innovate in Nigeria, because someone will simply steal your idea and bribe the judges.
The common thread through innovative countries is their ability to protect rights of property through law. Few things hold back the developing world more than corruption and clientelism.
And if you are in America, some mega-corporation will steal your idea and force you out with a battery or lawyers and a blizzard of lawsuits.
Sublime flash … Monsanto, plant-breeders’ rights and seed development.
Use of NSA spy agency in patent dispute of German Enercon versus a U.S. company Kenetech in wind turbines.
NSA is as corrupt as the CIA.
Very Serious People do it all the time. And some of them get paid pretty well for it, too.
Bykofsky: “… and I’m glad I won’t be here to see it.”
Well, if he puts it that way, I’m also kinda glad he won’t be here to see it.
Craig Murray: Five Reasons the MI6 Story is a Lie
Expect The Sunday Times “big and sensational” story on Russia and China breaking into Snowden’s files to flit around the internet for a while. Interestingly enough and to their credit, the NYTimes and WaPo are ignoring it so far.
Reuters, that picked the L Times story up, was already implying a good chance it was psi-ops.
Technically, Finland is Nordic, but not Scandinavian.
Having lived in Sweden for a while, I imagine that a robust middle class — low poverty, excellent education and medicine — means that you have a wider base to draw innovation from.
It’s been my hope that the more the GOP screams “SOCIALISM!!” every time the Democrats provide a tangible benefit for millions of people, that over time, people might start to give socialism a chance. There are still too many people with the blinkered view of Cold War ideology still wandering around Cracker Barrel before heading off to vote, but I have to think Millennials have an opportunity to redefine socialism within an American context.
While I don’t think that Bernie will win, I hope he makes socialism respectable. For too long it has been linked with Soviet dictatorship in people’s minds.
Not if Democrats don’t call it socialism. The “morans” holding up “Keep government hands off my Medicare” can’t even recognize that it’s a government program much less that it’s socialized medical insurance for seniors and disabled people.