We have mountains to scale but we’ve done it before. It’s just that we have different ones to scale – for example, innovation and competitiveness? Our positive experience from the Great Recession hasn’t translated to a rising standard of living and reducing poverty? On the other hand, competitive economies may have had a blip, but they were able to ride the waves, Singapore, being one of them? Of course, we could choose to lecture the West about greed? But what we want is to move forward, paddle our own canoe – not be holier than thou, nor blame others?
Innovation is simply responding to and anticipating man’s lifestyle. Unfortunately, that is what consumerism is about too. And if we don’t trust man’s free will then we would be against consumerism? We send our kids to exclusive schools because we want them protected – and of course, give them the best? The residents of the garden weren’t shielded from the serpent despite being naïve to the world?
Thailand has kept the ‘tuk-tuk’ . . . but also responded to and anticipated man’s lifestyle – it has become the “Detroit of Asia”: “a vast area 120 km (75 miles) east of Bangkok, where durian orchards have given way to car plants over the past decade and vehicles are made for export to more than 200 countries”, says Reuters. "The fabric is there. You can't just drop an assembly plant into nowhere and think that cars would just magically pop up. There has got to be the right environment that brings high-quality cars."
The lesson of Eden: Morality can’t be ‘legislated’? Teenage pregnancy is not a Western monopoly – adolescents learn the ropes? Of course, good education gives us a ticket to the upper tier in the hierarchy – where the challenge to decide, say, “do we make or buy”, is diminished if not eliminated? We can buy the best butlers, the best chauffeurs, the best schools, the best clothes, the best toys, the best vacation, the best everything? And then we turn around and say that an iPod is bad, for instance – because it represents the worst of consumerism? But then we’re paying a heavy price in innovation and competitiveness – because we have yet to develop the instinct?
Edison pioneered the pragmatic view of innovation – which was carried on by Gates and Jobs: ‘A phonograph in every home’; then ‘a computer in every home’. It was simply to respond to and anticipate man’s lifestyle. And after Menlo Park came Route 28 and Silicon Valley. Foreign enterprises have joined the bandwagon and established innovation centers in these technology hubs – or replicated them in their countries. And pioneering marketers adapted Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in pursuit of innovation, beyond going by economic classes – e.g., while Nokia pursued lower-priced cell phones especially for China and India, which cost the CEO his job, Apple kept moving up the value chain, and maintained leadership by responding to the lifestyle consumers valued, ease and convenience.
It is encouraging that we are crafting legislations that would promote science and technology. Yet we have to recognize that we are playing catch up . . . in a very big way – and must pursue development in parallel, e.g., with partnerships, and with urgency? But is anything big also bad – because they would take advantage of us? “The automobile cluster in Rayong (Thailand) is a small city, spread across 3,450 acres and packed with 25,000 employees toiling out of mammoth factories including those belonging to nine of the world's top 10 automotive suppliers.” [ibid] And unsurprisingly, Deng Xiaoping tells American businessmen, “China needs your money and technology,” reports the New York Times, Feb 20, 1997.
It is important to recognize that “technology” and “expensive” in the same sentence is incongruous and anachronistic – because it undermines creativity and competitiveness? We’ve been in stop-gap mode for decades – i.e., OFW remittances or the new middle class – which we won’t overcome with incremental thinking? Structural fix, not unknown to Deng Xiaoping, is founded on competitiveness – from investment and innovation to talent, product and market development. Our economic fundamentals won’t raise our revenues 10-fold – if we are to be a developed economy. What we need is a portfolio of competitive products and markets tapped and won, not the “old and tried and tested policies that only make matters worse,” so says Dr Rojas?
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