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The World’s Most Innovative Economies

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Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#31

Post by willvarfar »

kzrdude wrote: post #26
OskarS wrote: post #15

>The Swedes themselves promote an atmosphere of great personal ambition — unlike some European neighbors that emphasize the collective — and that’s a boon to innovation, he said. >“In the culture, people are super individualistic — this means that people have ideas and are very interested in pursuing them in this way in order to become wealthy,” said Henrekson. This is very true, and a thing which is often misunderst…

> Sweden is perhaps one of the most individualistic country in the world: we value the individual over the family or community, and we believe that everyone should have the same opportunities regardless of the circumstances of their birth. This is the reason we have the social safety net we have: it is a substitute for family and community and other more traditional support systems. I think this has its costs; humans…

I know a disabled man in a kommun with excellent economy where the kommun employ companions to sitdown and chat with him daily. These are mostly retired or near-retired people who are doing their bit for the community and getting a small income at the same time. The system works very very well.

I live in one of the kommuns with the very worst economy and the schools barely function. So the 100 carers thing is not because of the swedish psyche but because of the way healthcare is funded.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#32

Post by golergka »

joelthelion wrote: post #7

> South Korea remained the big winner, topping the international charts in R&D intensity, value-added manufacturing and patent activity and with top-five rankings in high-tech density, higher education and researcher concentration None of these are really all that relevant to true innovation. As a European, it's clear to me that no country comes even close to the US in terms of innovation. Almost all really new techn…

Only if you're looking at consumer-facing business. Not every startup tries to create a brand and get articles written in TechCrunch and NYT: many are just developing revolutionary tech that is later bought and used by others.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#34

Post by kalleboo »

sebcat wrote: post #30
OskarS wrote: post #15

>The Swedes themselves promote an atmosphere of great personal ambition — unlike some European neighbors that emphasize the collective — and that’s a boon to innovation, he said. >“In the culture, people are super individualistic — this means that people have ideas and are very interested in pursuing them in this way in order to become wealthy,” said Henrekson. This is very true, and a thing which is often misunderst…

I think you are applying your own values to the population as a whole. Depending on ones ethnicity, social class, and other variables, one may, as a Swede, value family or community over the individual.

There is certainly variation, but a lot of the broad social policies betray a bias toward individualism. For instance one of the goals of the "million programme" to build enough homes so that you didn't have man generations living under the same roof.

I live in Japan now, and while it's seen as a collective society, it's clear so much more of left to families to deal with themselves rather than society as a whole.

Sweden has broader social programs and is more individualistic, and Japan has weaker social programs and is more communal. It shows how the US one dimensional view of left/right isnt all there is to it.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#35

Post by kalleboo »

demonshalo wrote: post #3

This makes 0 sense to my heavily biased brain. As a Swede that is keeping a close eye on the domestic market, I can't find that many "innovations" taking place in most commercial sectors. R&D means quack-all if you cant translate that research into good and services that the citizens of said country can take advantage of.

Everything is relative. How many other countries had systems like BankID, Swish, doing their taxes online as well as with Skatteverket, etc etc when those came out? how many of those countries have populations smaller than Sweden? How much innovation comes out of Ohio which has a larger population?

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#36

Post by PastaMonster »

OskarS wrote: post #28
kzrdude wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sweden is perhaps one of the most individualistic country in the world: we value the individual over the family or community, and we believe that everyone should have the same opportunities regardless of the circumstances of their birth. This is the reason we have the social safety net we have: it is a substitute for family and community and other more traditional support systems. I think this has its costs; humans…

Oh, yes, I totally agree! There's a very steep cost to this model of "Swedish-style individualism", and it's exactly the one you describe. Swedes have much weaker bonds to their extended family, their community, their religious institutions (etc.) and it's clearly not a good thing. Humans are social animals. I'm not necessarily arguing that Sweden is a model society and all other countries should adopt our ways. What…

Read somewhere that the chance of having higher intelligence is reflected in how self-sufficient you are. People with higher intelligence tend to manage just fine with a small social group with weak connections. The more social you are the more likely that you have lower intelligence.

Sort of suggests that following the collective, being an ant in a colony may have negative effects on intelligence over a few generations. Natures law: "What you don't use you lose." You don't need higher intelligence because so many are chipping in to compensate.

Then again, balance is a fickle thing.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#37

Post by JohnStrange »

sebcat wrote: post #30
OskarS wrote: post #15

>The Swedes themselves promote an atmosphere of great personal ambition — unlike some European neighbors that emphasize the collective — and that’s a boon to innovation, he said. >“In the culture, people are super individualistic — this means that people have ideas and are very interested in pursuing them in this way in order to become wealthy,” said Henrekson. This is very true, and a thing which is often misunderst…

I think you are applying your own values to the population as a whole. Depending on ones ethnicity, social class, and other variables, one may, as a Swede, value family or community over the individual.

What you say is a truism, of course. But more specifically, the overt stance towards values across different cultures is one of the best researched topics in the social sciences. For example, you can download data from http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/ and http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/, and http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org and these are just the top links from Google when you look for value surveys. This kind of data is based on surveys with all the caveats these come with. (People do not necessarily report what they really think in surveys.) I believe Ronald Inglehart was one of the first to start with extensive empirical surveys of this sort. Nowadays they are conducted world-wide by vast number of organizations and there are also yearly summary publications in book format.

I was admittedly too lazy to check the values in Sweden vs elsewhere, just wanted to add to your comment that what values people endorse (or at least overtly report to endorse) in various countries and regions of the world is not unknown at all and it is not hard to look up data from reputable sources. How people act upon the values they report (if at all), is a different matter, of course.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#38

Post by geon »

PastaMonster wrote: post #36
OskarS wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, yes, I totally agree! There's a very steep cost to this model of "Swedish-style individualism", and it's exactly the one you describe. Swedes have much weaker bonds to their extended family, their community, their religious institutions (etc.) and it's clearly not a good thing. Humans are social animals. I'm not necessarily arguing that Sweden is a model society and all other countries should adopt our ways. What…

Read somewhere that the chance of having higher intelligence is reflected in how self-sufficient you are. People with higher intelligence tend to manage just fine with a small social group with weak connections. The more social you are the more likely that you have lower intelligence. Sort of suggests that following the collective, being an ant in a colony may have negative effects on intelligence over a few generati…

That would have no effect over just a few generations.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#39

Post by vidarh »

geon wrote: post #19
aaron-lebo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's very much a cultural thing. Much of the social system in the US is informal. For example in the American South, things like the Salvation Army are huge and lots of small churches have homeless programs, food drives, and facilities that push for employment skills. Of course that ties a lot of dogma into social help, but it's there. Sweden, having a much smaller government with fewer conflicting factions i…

> Sweden, having a much smaller government with fewer conflicting factions Lol. In contrast to the US, Sweden has a somewhat functioning democracy with more than 2 mainstream parties.

But I think Sweden, and the rest of Scandinavia (I'm Norwegian) has a less adversarial political system. We're used to coalitions, so most political parties are careful not to burn bridges totally. We also often have broad negotiated compromises where the US is more likely to have bitterly fought battles leading to a small majority where the losers ends up trying hard to reverse the decision afterwards (witness the Affordable Care Act debacle).

E.g. when the immigration crisis hit all the parties in parliament in Norway other than the Progress Party (furthest right wing populists in parliament) negotiated a joint agreement, rather than wrangling until someone managed to get just a 5x% majority for their plan.

As a result a lot of decisions end up being a lot less controversial than one might think, and remain more stable, as few substantial decisions rest on a minor parliamentary majority.

Re: The World’s Most Innovative Economies

#40

Post by kriro »

I wonder how they measure patent activity given the vastly different patent systems. Software patents being the most obvious example. Is a country penalized for being "less active" if there are no software patents in that country (the explanation in the footnotes has me believe the answer would be yes)?

I'm also skeptical of the weights that were used (equal weights). My instinct (as a non-US citizen) would be that the #1 spot in high tech of the US is worth a lot more than other categories (and the gap to #2 is probably also substantial). I'm fairly surprised that the U.S. is only #10 in R&D intensity.

I'd like to see some correlation to some education rankings (+imported workers) as well, could be interesting.

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