I would agree that the patent application process is a step removed from the actual innovation, so perhaps it’s fair to say that patent applications are a weak indicator of innovation. R&D spending might be a better indicator, but even that too has potential flaws: if it’s true, as Hunter claims, that Southeast Asia’s research institutions “tend to imitate previous research undertaken in other regions of the world,” then spending more might not be worthwhile or representative of true progress.
Ultimately, the numbers only tell part of the story, but then again, so do selective anecdotes. I think that for every worker that was burned to death in an assembling factory, many more were happy to have found jobs that took them off the farm and gave them more earning power.
Looking at the professional jumping off 5th floor along with 91 year old mother in Athens, Bhutan Gross National Happinessx Index may not be that much of a fringe joke.
When The Ford did the dissociation of work, workers and product for the sake of production and is perpetuated ending up with people happily flashing iPAD’s while not being able to feel anything for the workers who burned to death in assembling factories.
Is there an inherently dangerous monster luking in the cold, crisp, sometimes comforting NUMBERs?
Innovation itself is though no one’s monopoly. Patents are purely commercial entities and perhaps cannot be taken so seriously of their relationship to innovation.
For example, patents for multi-million dollar business of surgical staplers used for wildly successful operations around the globe are owned by few international conglomerates which have no relationship whatsoever with the original Hungarian thinker and inventer who died quietly with no fanfare.
And how do one think the 40 years old Chevrolets are running under ten times the weight it was originally designed to carry today?
Innovations do happen. It is only the question of whether it is widely commercialised. Therefore the intention of innovation.
Still public support of study of basic sciences and innovation is indeed beneficial to the country in the long term, a fact more and more neglected on financial pressure as even the Samsung engineeers are finding having to copy iPAD under management pressure rather than make one of their own vision.
And i am scratching my head why i should bother answering your questions, which all contain an impolite snide or insinuation.
Whatever…
The HRW investigators interviewed me, but decided not to include my accounts, especially over the killing zone incident, as the believed another person who wasn’t even there during the incident and at the day, and had very little background knowledge or contacts (we had quite an argument during the interview over this, which pissed me off tremendously, especially as this was only a very short time after this whole mess, when i was psychologically still very stressed).
They also decided to believe the massive discrediting campaign that at the time was launched by the DP government against me, and decided not to listen to the people who supported me (I had quite a nightmarish time the year after the crackdown – the political pressure i was under then was very bad, at some later time i might go into details).
They went with the sexy story over Wat Patum, meaning the simplistic stuff the media came out with at the time, without looking at the enormous complexities of the incident. I have warned them over this, but i and one or two others were the minority voice, and therefore disbelieved. I won’t go presently any deeper into this, other than that there were a few incidents that they should have looked deeper into, instead of going into the seemingly obvious stuff.
I have to point out here though that Sunai Pasuk, contrary what many believe, was not part of the HRW report. I don’t want to go any deeper into this right now and here, other than that if Sunai would have played a larger role the report could have been much better. Sunai is one of the very few people here who are extremely knowledgeable, factual and objective, and do walk neutral ground.
It would also lead to far to discuss the weaknesses and strong points of the report too deeply. It has merit, but also some weaknesses which could have been avoided.
One of the shameful colonial legacy is the creation of a bureaucracy that is not only made to favor the colonists but to stag against the common citizenry. A subject by itself that is still evident where HRM has had a claimed as part of the empire.
This bureaucracy has essentially remain unchanged since it inception, the latter part of 1800.
The serpentine, unclear, redundant overall onerous steps to obtain even a simple permit/document will make everyone but the most desperate to even attempt the process.
This bureaucratic quagmire has been maintained through the “Middle Person”.
For a fee the MP will navigate the necessary bureaucratic quagmire:
1)Appropriate and directed payments/bribes the Power That Be (PTB) responsible for the approval as well as minor minions along the bureaucratic process.
2)Thus Insulate the PTB from the appearance of corruption.
Unless this MP model is eradicated as in Singapore. Taiwan and Thailand.
Singapore stand alone to survive the colonial legacy through Lee effort.
Will Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her adoring cohorts ever realize and help this most important 1st step towards rule of law by making the Judiciary System in Myanmar independent by ridding it of MP?
Broadly defined, I don’t think “economic growth” is a Western concept, just as I don’t think that the principles behind “gross national happiness” or “sufficiency economy” are the sole province of the East. Honestly, I find that most East vs. West dichotomies tend to be reductionist at best, and perhaps I made a mistake by perpetuating them in my last post.
To be clear, my point was not that countries should pursue economic growth, but that economic growth tends to be driven by innovation when countries reach a certain level of income, and moreover that many indicators suggest that most Southeast Asian nations (with the notable exception of Singapore) are not pursuing innovation aggressively at either the national or the corporate level as their more developed peers in both the East and the West. Since my last entry, I’ve found even more indicators that corroborate this point, such as the EIU Innovation Index. Aside from Singapore, which ranks highly on virtually all innovation indicators, there’s not a single Southeast Asian country in the Top 30.
It is perfectly possible to argue over the question of what constitutes true innovation and how exactly to measure economic development. My analysis rests on the common definitions, i.e. that “innovation” is best viewed as the provision of new technologies and ideas, and that “economic growth” is simply an increase in the amount of goods and services produced in an economy. Economic growth is, of course, separate from overall well-being, and I fully agree that no entity should pursue growth at all costs. Personally, I’d rather have more gross national happiness than gross national income, but alas, these decisions are not up to me.
As to your final point, I think that the relationship between innovation, freedom and democracy is complex, but I do think it’s fair to say that the type of political system (e.g. democracy vs. autocracy) probably matters less than the specific policies and vision of the leaders that run the system. As previously mentioned, Singapore is a global hotbed of innovation, despite having relatively low press freedom and a political system with many authoritarian elements. Meanwhile, Myanmar also has low press freedom and an authoritarian political structure, and they barely even have technology, much less the capacity to invent new technologies. So as for the question of which kinds of political systems are best for producing innovation, and the relationship between those political systems and the level of freedom of the population, the answer is: it depends.
[…] Dr Tapsell presented his research at this Year’s Malaysia and Singapore Update at the Australian National University. Video footage of the event is available here. […]
I am scratching my head for a long time on this one: Why was Nick Nostitz not among the journalists interviewed and quoted by HRW in their ‘Descent into Chaos’ report?
And this two questions to Nick Nostitz: (1) Is there anything in the HRW account that you specifically agree, and more importantly, disagree with? HRW did portray the Red Shirt leaders as ‘provoking violence (and arson) during their bloody protests. But Nostitz insists that Tida and the Reds are a peaceful lot . . . really Nick?
Alright, Will, but isn’t “economic growth” a value taken from the Western intellectual tool box (as a classic case of the Weberian “Spirit of Capitalism”)? Why force other countries on this path? Thai royalists play proud lip-service to “sufficiency economy,” and even TIME recently found it worthwhile publishing a long article on Bhutan’s “Gross National Happiness Index.”
As for the “decoupling” of innovation etc. from freedom and democracy, doesn’t it make us arrive at the Chinese and Vietnamese development models, and prompt us to support the suppression of people in those countries who want more freedom and democracy? Or are those people not worthy, because these very desires demonstrate that they have fallen victim to “western intellectual colonialism?”
Srithanonchai raises a fair point. It is, of course, the prerogative of every society to determine how much it values innovation, and how it wishes to apply its creative energy. To say that Southeast Asia should pursue more innovation simply because it is better to be more innovative would be a statement that reeks of “Western intellectual imperialism,” but my reading of Mr. Hunter’s piece is that he favors more innovation because it will improve Southeast Asia’s long-term economic growth rates. This is not a moral position; this is a fact that appears to be well-grounded in the economics literature.
In his article, Mr. Hunter specifically decouples the concept of innovation from supposedly “Western” concepts of freedom and democracy. This makes sense. Innovation, in and of itself, is not a Western construct, even though placing a high value on innovation at the expense of tradition and conformity is certainly a Western tendency.
Mr. Hunter’s assessment of Southeast Asian innovation is not off-the-mark. I think the data clearly shows that Southeast Asian countries have chosen not to apply as many resources to innovation as their Western counterparts. This is reflected partially in the patent data that Mr. Hunter provides, as well as in data on R&D as a share of GDP. According to this report, most Southeast Asian nations, with the exception of Malaysia and Singapore, dedicate less than 0.25% of their GDP to R&D, whereas more developed and/or Westernized countries dedicate four to eight times that amount to promoting research. Whether that’s better or not is up to each country to determine for itself.
I wonder a bit whether calls for independent thinking, creativity, and technological innovations are not actually part of what Murray Hunter normally denounces as “western intellectual colonialism through the backdoor?”
Thanks, Andrew, for an intro to your new book! I can’t wait to check it out!
I’m surprised at the skepticism towards anthropology and the anthropology of popular religion/magic/spirits in the comments here. Quite obviously belief in power shares something across the board, whether that power be supernatural or occult or royal or political or economic. How we think about one category affects how we see others – Pattana Kitiarsa, Peter Jackson, and others have written plenty of great articles about the bleed-through between Thai conceptions of political power, economics, and such “superstition.” Looking at such a thing helps us to not only de-mystify it, but also gives us insight towards mystifications which we might otherwise accept as realities. It’s too simplistic to say “I see through it all, and it’s all political oppression,” especially without careful study.
The moment Daw Aung SAn Suu KYi, the West designate main opposition leader accepted her seat in the Hlutthaw the validation and acceptance of this present constitution of SG Than Swe is complete.
Stand alone #4 ever happening require magical thinking.
Buyer’s remorse aside, the main drive now, if all those previous groups that have so ardently opposed this military government, that wish to prove sincerity to be the champion of the citizenry must be,to come up with practical ways/ideas and means to bolster institutions within that will champion civil laws/Human Rights.
Presently Institutions that uphold laws/statues and orders from the police up to the judges that rule on challenges still function under mostly unchanged compendium of laws since the colonial period.
These laws are essentially still the means by with the cronies and present regime have used purely to benefit themselves.
In order that entire citizenry enjoy the same benefit of quickly the legal system need to be promoted relentlessly as well as strengthen.
The best ways to promote these institutions as well as process are well known to the West.
So why have the West that supported groups that agree with their useless careless policy now not promoting the means by wish Rule of Law can be strengthened directly and indirectly?
If there is indeed a need for careful “sequencing”, early action on recommendation number 4 may prove very risky for Myanmar.
And why not stress the importance of developing and enforcing a strict regime for the control of resources, not least land–on whose control the livelihood of most of Myanmar’s people and thus the future of its democracy will depend?
Facebook 
Twitter 
Soundcloud 
Youtube 
Rss
The challenge of innovation in ASEAN
I would agree that the patent application process is a step removed from the actual innovation, so perhaps it’s fair to say that patent applications are a weak indicator of innovation. R&D spending might be a better indicator, but even that too has potential flaws: if it’s true, as Hunter claims, that Southeast Asia’s research institutions “tend to imitate previous research undertaken in other regions of the world,” then spending more might not be worthwhile or representative of true progress.
Ultimately, the numbers only tell part of the story, but then again, so do selective anecdotes. I think that for every worker that was burned to death in an assembling factory, many more were happy to have found jobs that took them off the farm and gave them more earning power.
The challenge of innovation in ASEAN
Looking at the professional jumping off 5th floor along with 91 year old mother in Athens, Bhutan Gross National Happinessx Index may not be that much of a fringe joke.
When The Ford did the dissociation of work, workers and product for the sake of production and is perpetuated ending up with people happily flashing iPAD’s while not being able to feel anything for the workers who burned to death in assembling factories.
Is there an inherently dangerous monster luking in the cold, crisp, sometimes comforting NUMBERs?
Innovation itself is though no one’s monopoly. Patents are purely commercial entities and perhaps cannot be taken so seriously of their relationship to innovation.
For example, patents for multi-million dollar business of surgical staplers used for wildly successful operations around the globe are owned by few international conglomerates which have no relationship whatsoever with the original Hungarian thinker and inventer who died quietly with no fanfare.
And how do one think the 40 years old Chevrolets are running under ten times the weight it was originally designed to carry today?
Innovations do happen. It is only the question of whether it is widely commercialised. Therefore the intention of innovation.
Still public support of study of basic sciences and innovation is indeed beneficial to the country in the long term, a fact more and more neglected on financial pressure as even the Samsung engineeers are finding having to copy iPAD under management pressure rather than make one of their own vision.
HRW fires a few grenades
As in the case of their biased reports on Burma, HRW wrote only what their donors want to hear as they are just a donor stooge.
HRW fires a few grenades
And i am scratching my head why i should bother answering your questions, which all contain an impolite snide or insinuation.
Whatever…
The HRW investigators interviewed me, but decided not to include my accounts, especially over the killing zone incident, as the believed another person who wasn’t even there during the incident and at the day, and had very little background knowledge or contacts (we had quite an argument during the interview over this, which pissed me off tremendously, especially as this was only a very short time after this whole mess, when i was psychologically still very stressed).
They also decided to believe the massive discrediting campaign that at the time was launched by the DP government against me, and decided not to listen to the people who supported me (I had quite a nightmarish time the year after the crackdown – the political pressure i was under then was very bad, at some later time i might go into details).
They went with the sexy story over Wat Patum, meaning the simplistic stuff the media came out with at the time, without looking at the enormous complexities of the incident. I have warned them over this, but i and one or two others were the minority voice, and therefore disbelieved. I won’t go presently any deeper into this, other than that there were a few incidents that they should have looked deeper into, instead of going into the seemingly obvious stuff.
I have to point out here though that Sunai Pasuk, contrary what many believe, was not part of the HRW report. I don’t want to go any deeper into this right now and here, other than that if Sunai would have played a larger role the report could have been much better. Sunai is one of the very few people here who are extremely knowledgeable, factual and objective, and do walk neutral ground.
It would also lead to far to discuss the weaknesses and strong points of the report too deeply. It has merit, but also some weaknesses which could have been avoided.
What next for Myanmar’s reforms?
One of the shameful colonial legacy is the creation of a bureaucracy that is not only made to favor the colonists but to stag against the common citizenry. A subject by itself that is still evident where HRM has had a claimed as part of the empire.
This bureaucracy has essentially remain unchanged since it inception, the latter part of 1800.
The serpentine, unclear, redundant overall onerous steps to obtain even a simple permit/document will make everyone but the most desperate to even attempt the process.
This bureaucratic quagmire has been maintained through the “Middle Person”.
For a fee the MP will navigate the necessary bureaucratic quagmire:
1)Appropriate and directed payments/bribes the Power That Be (PTB) responsible for the approval as well as minor minions along the bureaucratic process.
2)Thus Insulate the PTB from the appearance of corruption.
Unless this MP model is eradicated as in Singapore. Taiwan and Thailand.
Singapore stand alone to survive the colonial legacy through Lee effort.
Will Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and her adoring cohorts ever realize and help this most important 1st step towards rule of law by making the Judiciary System in Myanmar independent by ridding it of MP?
Here were Men in Black!
Ron Torrence – yes, I know. But their authors are almost always anonymous.
The challenge of innovation in ASEAN
Broadly defined, I don’t think “economic growth” is a Western concept, just as I don’t think that the principles behind “gross national happiness” or “sufficiency economy” are the sole province of the East. Honestly, I find that most East vs. West dichotomies tend to be reductionist at best, and perhaps I made a mistake by perpetuating them in my last post.
To be clear, my point was not that countries should pursue economic growth, but that economic growth tends to be driven by innovation when countries reach a certain level of income, and moreover that many indicators suggest that most Southeast Asian nations (with the notable exception of Singapore) are not pursuing innovation aggressively at either the national or the corporate level as their more developed peers in both the East and the West. Since my last entry, I’ve found even more indicators that corroborate this point, such as the EIU Innovation Index. Aside from Singapore, which ranks highly on virtually all innovation indicators, there’s not a single Southeast Asian country in the Top 30.
It is perfectly possible to argue over the question of what constitutes true innovation and how exactly to measure economic development. My analysis rests on the common definitions, i.e. that “innovation” is best viewed as the provision of new technologies and ideas, and that “economic growth” is simply an increase in the amount of goods and services produced in an economy. Economic growth is, of course, separate from overall well-being, and I fully agree that no entity should pursue growth at all costs. Personally, I’d rather have more gross national happiness than gross national income, but alas, these decisions are not up to me.
As to your final point, I think that the relationship between innovation, freedom and democracy is complex, but I do think it’s fair to say that the type of political system (e.g. democracy vs. autocracy) probably matters less than the specific policies and vision of the leaders that run the system. As previously mentioned, Singapore is a global hotbed of innovation, despite having relatively low press freedom and a political system with many authoritarian elements. Meanwhile, Myanmar also has low press freedom and an authoritarian political structure, and they barely even have technology, much less the capacity to invent new technologies. So as for the question of which kinds of political systems are best for producing innovation, and the relationship between those political systems and the level of freedom of the population, the answer is: it depends.
Malaysia and Singapore Update 2012 videos
[…] Dr Tapsell presented his research at this Year’s Malaysia and Singapore Update at the Australian National University. Video footage of the event is available here. […]
HRW fires a few grenades
I am scratching my head for a long time on this one: Why was Nick Nostitz not among the journalists interviewed and quoted by HRW in their ‘Descent into Chaos’ report?
And this two questions to Nick Nostitz: (1) Is there anything in the HRW account that you specifically agree, and more importantly, disagree with? HRW did portray the Red Shirt leaders as ‘provoking violence (and arson) during their bloody protests. But Nostitz insists that Tida and the Reds are a peaceful lot . . . really Nick?
The challenge of innovation in ASEAN
Alright, Will, but isn’t “economic growth” a value taken from the Western intellectual tool box (as a classic case of the Weberian “Spirit of Capitalism”)? Why force other countries on this path? Thai royalists play proud lip-service to “sufficiency economy,” and even TIME recently found it worthwhile publishing a long article on Bhutan’s “Gross National Happiness Index.”
As for the “decoupling” of innovation etc. from freedom and democracy, doesn’t it make us arrive at the Chinese and Vietnamese development models, and prompt us to support the suppression of people in those countries who want more freedom and democracy? Or are those people not worthy, because these very desires demonstrate that they have fallen victim to “western intellectual colonialism?”
Here were Men in Black!
But if he writes for The Economist we would not always be able to read it,they are banned here sometimes.
The challenge of innovation in ASEAN
Srithanonchai raises a fair point. It is, of course, the prerogative of every society to determine how much it values innovation, and how it wishes to apply its creative energy. To say that Southeast Asia should pursue more innovation simply because it is better to be more innovative would be a statement that reeks of “Western intellectual imperialism,” but my reading of Mr. Hunter’s piece is that he favors more innovation because it will improve Southeast Asia’s long-term economic growth rates. This is not a moral position; this is a fact that appears to be well-grounded in the economics literature.
In his article, Mr. Hunter specifically decouples the concept of innovation from supposedly “Western” concepts of freedom and democracy. This makes sense. Innovation, in and of itself, is not a Western construct, even though placing a high value on innovation at the expense of tradition and conformity is certainly a Western tendency.
Mr. Hunter’s assessment of Southeast Asian innovation is not off-the-mark. I think the data clearly shows that Southeast Asian countries have chosen not to apply as many resources to innovation as their Western counterparts. This is reflected partially in the patent data that Mr. Hunter provides, as well as in data on R&D as a share of GDP. According to this report, most Southeast Asian nations, with the exception of Malaysia and Singapore, dedicate less than 0.25% of their GDP to R&D, whereas more developed and/or Westernized countries dedicate four to eight times that amount to promoting research. Whether that’s better or not is up to each country to determine for itself.
The challenge of innovation in ASEAN
P.S.:
I wonder a bit whether calls for independent thinking, creativity, and technological innovations are not actually part of what Murray Hunter normally denounces as “western intellectual colonialism through the backdoor?”
Here were Men in Black!
The Economist should give you a job, Nick.
The power of spirits
Thanks, Andrew, for an intro to your new book! I can’t wait to check it out!
I’m surprised at the skepticism towards anthropology and the anthropology of popular religion/magic/spirits in the comments here. Quite obviously belief in power shares something across the board, whether that power be supernatural or occult or royal or political or economic. How we think about one category affects how we see others – Pattana Kitiarsa, Peter Jackson, and others have written plenty of great articles about the bleed-through between Thai conceptions of political power, economics, and such “superstition.” Looking at such a thing helps us to not only de-mystify it, but also gives us insight towards mystifications which we might otherwise accept as realities. It’s too simplistic to say “I see through it all, and it’s all political oppression,” especially without careful study.
The challenge of innovation in ASEAN
“instead of just producing or adopting things that others have created” > Thailand seems to feel very comfortable with this situation.
What next for Myanmar’s reforms?
The moment Daw Aung SAn Suu KYi, the West designate main opposition leader accepted her seat in the Hlutthaw the validation and acceptance of this present constitution of SG Than Swe is complete.
Stand alone #4 ever happening require magical thinking.
Buyer’s remorse aside, the main drive now, if all those previous groups that have so ardently opposed this military government, that wish to prove sincerity to be the champion of the citizenry must be,to come up with practical ways/ideas and means to bolster institutions within that will champion civil laws/Human Rights.
Presently Institutions that uphold laws/statues and orders from the police up to the judges that rule on challenges still function under mostly unchanged compendium of laws since the colonial period.
These laws are essentially still the means by with the cronies and present regime have used purely to benefit themselves.
In order that entire citizenry enjoy the same benefit of quickly the legal system need to be promoted relentlessly as well as strengthen.
The best ways to promote these institutions as well as process are well known to the West.
So why have the West that supported groups that agree with their useless careless policy now not promoting the means by wish Rule of Law can be strengthened directly and indirectly?
Here were Men in Black!
I am not really a red shirt supporter but am an avid reader of anything about the topic if the authors name is Nick, always informative and balanced
What next for Myanmar’s reforms?
If there is indeed a need for careful “sequencing”, early action on recommendation number 4 may prove very risky for Myanmar.
And why not stress the importance of developing and enforcing a strict regime for the control of resources, not least land–on whose control the livelihood of most of Myanmar’s people and thus the future of its democracy will depend?
Here were Men in Black!
Thanks for your comments Nick, much appreciated.