Why China will not be the world’s innovation leader

Remember Laura D'Andrea Tyson? A Republican Congress and Monica Lewinsky rescued us from her leftist economics when she was Chair of the under Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. As far as we know she and Hillary were the only women in the White House that Clinton did not have an affair with.

Recently, Ms. Tyson warned us in “Avoiding the Sino-American Technology Trap” that China is about to become the innovation leader of the world because they have a five-year plan:

Building on its 13th Five Year Plan (in May 2016), the authorities established objectives for China to become an “innovative nation” by 2020, an “international innovation leader” by 2030, and a “world powerhouse of scientific and technological innovation” by 2050. It also committed to increasing its expenditure on research and development to 2.5% of GDP and almost doubling the number of patents filed per 10,000 people by 2020.

Tyson should know better than to place so much faith in central planning. After all, the defunct Soviet Union enjoyed similar five-year plans for much longer. If this is China’s 13th plan, they began in 1953 and their economy didn’t take off until the 1980s. What happened to the previous five-year plans?

Socialists frighten about climate change and AI

I’m sure Elon Musk would be highly offended to know that he is a promoter of Marxism. After all, look at the number of businesses he has started. But he has admitted he only started those companies to promote change to cleaner forms of energy until the governments of the world recognize the problem of global climate change and pass the necessary laws to save us. By promoting global climate change (GCC) hysteria and fear about artificial intelligence (AI), while asserting that the problems are so large only governments can solve them, he is unwittingly promoting socialism. It’s an old socialist technique.

After centuries of attempts at socialism beginning with the Spartans, Plato’s Republic and Christian monasteries, atheists and deists (sentimental atheists) introduced the latest iteration of socialism in early 19th century France. Henri de Saint-Simon convinced his followers that the problems of the world were so large than only powerful states could solve them. He considered the chief problems to be poverty and inequality. Socialists were shocked and awed by the meager advances in the natural sciences so Saint-Simon proposed that a junta of scientists, led by a mathematician, should work together to solve France’s problems and dictate the solutions to compliant citizens. That has been the model for socialism since.