alt Hacker NewsWhy do American companies have to rely on artificial protections like IP in order to compete? Don't forget it's only "stealing" if you're culturally inclined to see IP as actual property, whereas in China the idea has long been that ideas are common good, even predating Marxism.
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So stealing trade secrets is legal in China?
Or do they publish all their IP on a government site for all to see?
R&D is very expensive and you want some protection for having borne that cost. If a competitor can just swoop in and clone your tech then they’re at an immediate, unfair advantage.
> artificial protections
Everything is an artificial protection by your standard. Laws are written for a reason.
IP is an incentive to develop the IP in the first place. Why would anyone sink huge amounts of money into developing IP if a competitor can just wait and then take it for itself.
And if its such a good idea, why hasn't China been a superpower for so long? America and Europe have been creating and innovating for centuries and millennia. In recent decades China has risen by replicating the West's technology and techniques. Where would China right now be without the West? What is the plan to surpass the West without someone else supplying the IP? Suddenly China is going excel at something at something they haven't done? Japan is instructive because they rose economically in a similar fashion.
A key difference is that the West are liberal democracies and there is strong evidence that freedom and a cosmopolitan society promotes innovation.
Which system is better isn't hard to spot. The naivete of some here is incredible.
Not to mention that the US was notorious for IP theft until it would up at the apex of the international order. I presume as China becomes economically dominant it too will gradually shift toward rent seeking and patent enforcement.