Unfree societies, it seems, can indeed innovate as long as they’re willing to accept the scientific method
Can religious societies innovate to produce scientific breakthroughs like those that came out of the secular West over the last century, or are they too backward-looking and blinkered by tradition to break new ground?
Just a few years ago, the latter argument became a central talking point in one of the biggest geo-political stories of the day: the astonishing rise of China.
Back then, American politicians were waking up to the fact that the Communist giant had emerged as a potential rival. Turbocharged economic growth was enabling China to lay down the world’s largest high-speed rail network, its cities to sprout a forest of skyscrapers, and its military to invest in high-tech kit meant to challenge US supremacy.
But for much of the 2000s, even as it became clear that millions of blue-collar jobs outsourced to China weren’t coming back, policymakers shrugged. What US workers lost in jobs, the free-traders claimed, they made up for with cheap goods at Wal-Mart.
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