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>Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Which worked so well for Japan that you had Nobel economic laureates promoting it. </s> I'm being

by ghaff 2y ago

>Consistent, long term industrial policy is very effective. Which worked so well for Japan that you had Nobel economic laureates promoting it. </s> I'm being a bit sarcastic of course but MITA was seen as such the future in Japan--until it wasn't.

marcosdumay 2y ago
Industrial policy will bring you up to a point, and apparently, no further. Anyway, it was wildly successful in Japan, Germany, and the US. Up until the time it stopped working. It has been arguably less successful in China, but still good enough to create massive change.
- ghaff 2y ago
  I don't really disagree. You need, sorry, effective capitalism and a legal structure underneath the policy but that doesn't replace entrepreneurship and broader cultural norms.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    The problem is that industrial policy seems to be incompatible with effective capitalism and universal rule of law to some extent. It's not very clear (at least to me) how and why. But it never seems to be a positive thing after some point, instead, it seems to have very negative impacts on more developed countries.
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > It's not very clear (at least to me) how and why It's good at the initial stages and unproductive later on. The problem is that when you need to remove it is also when its recipients are most powerful.
      - ghaff 2y ago
        There's probably reasonable disagreement on the extent of anti-trust enforcement etc. in developed economies. We may see a case study in the coming years.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Of course, China has also been a very different animal politically. There's also the whole demographic equation which factors into Japan, China, and (at least eventually) the US.
fspeech 2y ago
Japan does not have a big enough domestic market, which means their industrial policy requires a lot of foreign cooperation to be effective. Once others started seeing them as a threat their game was over.
- ghaff 2y ago
  As an IT industry analyst, Japan also seemed always determined to do things their own way--see Itanium. Which made things more difficult for selling to a wider marker. Could make some of the same comments for Europe for which I also attended a variety of industry events.
  - fspeech 2y ago
    China tried to promote TDSCDMA for 3G, which also didn't work. At least they didn't make it their exclusive choice. In their more successful cases they didn't pick winners.

by ghaff 2y ago

marcosdumay 2y ago

Industrial policy will bring you up to a point, and apparently, no further. Anyway, it was wildly successful in Japan, Germany, and the US. Up until the time it stopped working. It has been arguably less successful in China, but still good enough to create massive change.

ghaff 2y ago
I don't really disagree. You need, sorry, effective capitalism and a legal structure underneath the policy but that doesn't replace entrepreneurship and broader cultural norms.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  The problem is that industrial policy seems to be incompatible with effective capitalism and universal rule of law to some extent. It's not very clear (at least to me) how and why. But it never seems to be a positive thing after some point, instead, it seems to have very negative impacts on more developed countries.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > It's not very clear (at least to me) how and why It's good at the initial stages and unproductive later on. The problem is that when you need to remove it is also when its recipients are most powerful.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      There's probably reasonable disagreement on the extent of anti-trust enforcement etc. in developed economies. We may see a case study in the coming years.
ghaff 2y ago
Of course, China has also been a very different animal politically. There's also the whole demographic equation which factors into Japan, China, and (at least eventually) the US.

fspeech 2y ago

Japan does not have a big enough domestic market, which means their industrial policy requires a lot of foreign cooperation to be effective. Once others started seeing them as a threat their game was over.

ghaff 2y ago
As an IT industry analyst, Japan also seemed always determined to do things their own way--see Itanium. Which made things more difficult for selling to a wider marker. Could make some of the same comments for Europe for which I also attended a variety of industry events.
- fspeech 2y ago
  China tried to promote TDSCDMA for 3G, which also didn't work. At least they didn't make it their exclusive choice. In their more successful cases they didn't pick winners.