Exactly, the successful Asian nations had very clever techniques for this. One, was to provide subsidy/tax breaks/trade protections only to those firms that cou

Exactly, the successful Asian nations had very clever techniques for this. One, was to provide subsidy/tax breaks/trade protections only to those firms that could compete on the global market. This means that firms have to find success through actual productivity and output, rather than through rent seeking. So it isn't so much "as a rule" as "as a rule when the government has been refulatorily captured." In fact I think you will find that most industries that are built only happen through lots of government "interference." Silicon Valley is an excellent example of this, as the early customers were all defense industry largesse. And without those extremely rich customers with very extreme technological needs, development of Silicon Valley would have stalled, or perhaps not happened at all.