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> but China has recently taken up a very potent type of hybrid economic development, where free-market startup-culture is encouraged, but guided and pruned by the government.

I don't think the USA gets enough credit for inventing this hybrid economic development system. Good examples include:

* Military computing -> Intel, IBM, etc. -> Moore's law

* DARPA cash -> early networking/PC projects at universities -> hacker/hobbyist culture -> Microsoft and Apple

* Gov't really emphasized "finding information" in CS the 1990's -> NSF grants at Stanford -> Google.

* The Human Genome Project -> Illumina, Solexa, etc. -> Moore's law-shaped cost curve for sequencing

And less R&D heavy examples like the national railways and the interstate highway system.

This pattern continues today. Self-driving cars started as several decades of NSF-funded research projects that turned into a DARPA-funded competition a decade-ish ago that turned into an industry-funded goal rush today.

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