Well, obviously culture and society play an important role in innovation. The British believed that the rigid and deferential Germans could never copy British i

Well, obviously culture and society play an important role in innovation. The British believed that the rigid and deferential Germans could never copy British industrial innovation which was based on independent inventors tinkering in sheds. They were right, but the Germans invented the concept of industrial education and close links with technical universities instead. I wish that political liberty was important to technological innovation, but it might not end up being so.