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Alex Potts's avatar

I read this and I'm left wondering - how did Silicon Valley ever come to be? They didn't need state intervention!

Is it simply a case that they have overwhelming first-mover advantage and every other country that isn't the US would need state support to stay vaguely competitive while the US can do without?

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David Higham's avatar

Just caught up with this. Very interesting. Sounds very Wilsonian. When I was working for Heseltine in DTI he was very interested in learning from MITI (and Japanese business practices in general) and I was one of the team sent to Japan on two occasions (1992 and 1994). We concluded two things: that Japan had been better at improving existing sectors (think cars, consumer electronics) than developing cutting edge technology (Fujitsu); and, industrial policy can’t be seen in isolation. Japan had a notoriously regulated labour market which drove the growth of conglomerates seeking new markets.

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