[MangoToupe]

> authoritarian societies also seem to have a lot of problems inventing new things

I'm not sure evidence can easily sustain this. Even putting aside the kind-of-tautological "rigid societies don't invent disruption" sentiment.... not only is "authoritarian" a pretty vague phrase in terms of economics, but we have a good deal of evidence of societies we mostly consider authoritarian inventing plenty of "disruptive" things. Just not a generally beneficial sort of disruption.

[WalterBright]

Inventions that disrupt the status quo tend to go nowhere in rigid societies. Inventors thrive in free market societies.

[MangoToupe]

I'm not sure I've ever witnessed a free market society, but surely one is not incompatible with rigidity of social structure or (lack of) values. Undermining the basic social necessities of society doesn't tend to produce people able to produce innovation either....

[WalterBright]

Consider the free market in the US. The greatest lifting of scores of millions of people ever from poverty into the middle class and wealthy. The enormous generation of inventions.

[ChainOfFools]

I'm not convinced that the unprecedented advantages of setting up base camp on the other end of a major global ocean on both sides of the landmass, the almost completely unfettered access to a continent of largely untapped natural resources with virtually no competition from established powers, of being in the right place at the right time to find enormous reserves of oil (and ultra-high grade anthracite coal) so close to the surface that it is possible to discover them by sight alone, and well over a century of widespread exploitation of pre-industrial society's version of market-disrupting robotic labor, AKA slavery, to undercut our competitors on top of all of our other advantages, have been sufficiently controlled for in this "we won because free market economy" analysis. Though I concede that the last one, slavery, is a feature you'd expect to emerge from of a pathologically under-regulated free market economy.

[WalterBright]

Allow me to present Japan. With none of those advantages, after WW2 they turned to free markets and became a powerhouse of invention and prosperity.

[lesuorac]

Allow me to present China.

Super authoritarian and yet super invovative.