Innovation in Asian countries is a huge problem. Part of this is Confucian values. I was educated for two years in Taiwan (my dad's company forced us to move, I was the white-washed Asian). Those brutal memories: I had to stay after school and take remedial work in the Chinese brush because I was barely literate, and every time my stroke was wrong the teacher would slam the brush against my fingers. We had to memorize poetry from Tang dynasty. If you missed even one character, you would miss the entire thing. No sissy partial credit.

When I tutored international students from Asia, the largest hurdle was to get them out of this box thinking. They wanted to be told how to write an essay, and they were asking me which side to take because they wanted to agree with the teacher. I said that was your job, that is what the teacher is testing you.

Except, when I read drafts of the essay, it read like a poorly plagiarized text of the history book. I said, you have no argument. You need to take a side. They blamed language difficulties, and I said, even if this were written in Chinese, you have no argument.

The main thing is that Asian countries value system and structure, and view that we stand on shoulders of giants. The problem, though, is they're highly trained and would out beat most US students on the SATs. Platonic systems have spurred a lot of innovation, but again, in the US, our foundations are weak: any moron can think he is genius in the States. The US education system is an interesting beast--it spurs innovation around college, but weak foundations during middle school years

For many industries, good foundations are keys to success. For software, though, you need to be able to be free thinking. Maybe this explains why China copies a lot of our software!

Pre-Qing dynasty China was a major source of innovations btw.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

It's interesting to note that almost all the inventions came before the Qing dynasty. Qing's Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799) is considered a "Confucian fundamentalist", who paved the way for the subsequent isolationist policies.

Confucianism is just one school of philosophy among many in China btw. Its influence tends to fluctuate from period to period.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinegar_tasters

Maybe I should have clarified as economic freedom, outscoring Australia and New Zealand. For actual civil liberties, you are right, the government is somewhat Chinese, somewhat corporate, and somewhat people controlled.

Source: http://asiancorrespondent.com/hong-kong-blog/freest-econonom...

For the 16th straight year Hong Kong has ranked top of the ladder as the freest economy in the world, according to the Index of Economic Freedom by the Heritage Foundation. [...]

This lofty ranking is generally attributed to the efficient processing of business applications, low tax rate and disciplined fiscal management by the government.

1. Starting a business in Hong Kong takes only six days while the rest of the world's average is 35 days 2. Hong Kong's weighted average tariff rate is zero per cent in 2008 3. Individuals enjoy a sliding scale tax rate between 2 and 17 percent 4. Maximum tax rate for businesses is pegged at just 16.5 percent 5. Import duties for beer and wine were removed in 2008 6. Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP stood at 14.2 percent 7. Inflation was generally low, averaging 3.5 percent between 2006 and 2008 8. There are no limits and no screening on foreign ownership when setting up foreign firm (except broadcasting) 9. There are no requirements on current transfers, access to foreign exchange and movement of profits.

ah. ok. That totally make since. I guess my concern in holding up HK or Singapore as shining examples of economic freedom and efficiency are that both of them come with pretty terrible cases of second class citizenry as a direct byproduct of their economic freedoms. (I know this is not at all the point you were trying to make)

Go to any apartment in central in HK and you will find a 5 by 5 foot room serving as maid quarters. Then go out in central on a Sunday afternoon and you will see the streets packed with Malaysian and Philippine maids. Then go look at the stats on the number of Chinese businessmen kidnapped in Malaysia and the Philippines every year and tell me there isn't a problem. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_on_Fire)

This problem doesn't exist anywhere in mainland China or Taiwan. And ultimately it is hard not to view it as an ugly byproduct of economic liberalism in these particular cultures.

Great examples. You might also remember that it took Hong Kong forever to protect races and sex status. Singapore Airlines is notorious for discriminating age, sex, and looks of its flight attendants.

If I may ask, you mean you will like the government to "force" or "regulate" the airline to take over the recruitment so that there is one male and one female in every cabin and at every age group? Where is the "freedom" in that? :)

And with regards to looks, you got to be kidding me. I assume you are implying they are only getting beautiful ladies. :)

"If I may ask, you mean you will like the government to "force" or "regulate" the airline to take over the recruitment so that there is one male and one female in every cabin and at every age group?"

That's not what non-discrimination means at all. What the demographic mix of the employees ends up looking like ought to bear a strong resemblance to the mix of applicants; nothing more.

>a key reason there weren't any Walmart types in Hong Kong was because it was more profitable to the Triads to keep all the mom and pop shops in business than to work with larger corporations

You're claiming Hong Kong isn't start up friendly because it doesn't support devastating monopolies like Walmart [1]??? Are you seriously telling me that if you went to a country where everywhere you looked you saw people in business for themselves you would find that less entrepreneur friendly than a place that just had one Walmart and nothing else? Monopoly is the exact opposite of free market.

[1] http://www.walmarteffectbook.com/

It never ceases to shock me when apparent free market proponents hold up Walmart as an example to aspire to. Are people not aware how much special treatment from the government Walmart gets? They do produce innovations here and there, but with the amount of money flowing through their fingers they bloody well should.

I think the point was not that the government is preventing a Wal-Mart-level success story, but that organized crime was preventing a Wal-Mart-level success story.

Say what you want about Wal-Mart (I avoid them like the plague just because I find the shopping experience actively repugnant), but to go from inception to world-dominating monster in ~40 years is impressive.

It's a shame that organized crime is involved but I view it as an otherwise healthy system if they prevent one company from becoming a monopoly. "Too big to fail" means someone didn't do their job.

Ugh, the "American Libertarians" on this site get a tab bit boring. Sorry I said something negative about your religion. Downvoting is easier than citing some credible source that shows that American Libertarianism is anything but a crackpot anti-theory.