[mncharity]

> Corruption exists of course, but that's like taxation.

A few years ago, at an economics talk out of Harvard, the speaker suggested there were advantages for innovation in China-style vs US-style corruption. One was that when legislative bribes are mostly paid by large incumbent companies, instead of being more broadly sourced, there's more systematic use of regulatory capture to reduce competition and replace innovation with rent seeking. Caveats: it was a side comment, and it wasn't clear to me the topic was fully within their research focus.

Similar issues exist around patents. I recently heard a billion-ish hardware tech CEO describe a large defensive patent portfolio as "table stakes" for playing. Though I wonder if they meant "buy in".