Friday, March 26, 2010

The Gospel of Innovation: A Skeptic's Take

A good friend of mine who works in business in Singapore (how's that for a Friedman-esque lead-in?) sent along this piece from The Washington Note, in which former IBM executive Ralph Gomory takes on the Friedmanian mantra that the United States has to build its economy around innovation and R&D, because we can't compete with low-wage countries such as India and China in manufacturing and low-level service industries.

Truth be told, Gomory's argument engages in a good amount of straw-manning, and unfortunately it's devoid of the snarkiness that Friedman critiques cry out for. Nevertheless, we at The Mustache of Understanding applaud all Friedman take-downs, no matter how flawed or how dull.

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