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Odbacivanjem socijalizma Izrael je postao tehnološki div
by Hektorović 1/3/2020, 01:46
Lawrence Solomon: Netanyahu took Israel from nation of orange groves to one that grows inventions
Lawrence Solomon
February 28, 2020
9:50 AM EST
Before Israel became known as the Startup Nation, its signature exports were Jaffa oranges and other agricultural products. Theories abound as to how Israel morphed from a nation of orange groves to one that grows inventions by the bushel but no one seems to give credit where it is arguably due the most — to the economic policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose rise to power coincides with the rise of the Startup Nation.
Before the Netanyahu era, Israel under Labor governments was a darling of the Socialist International but an innovation laggard, meriting no Nobel Prizes in the sciences, filing few international patents and developing only one or two successful firms per year in information and communications technologies (ICT), the field encompassing computers and the internet. Previous left-wing governments, despite earnest programs designed to promote industry — including at one point manufacture of a home-grown fibreglass automobile — enjoyed but modest success.
Then in 1996 when the Likud Party came to power Netanyahu, as both prime minister and science and technology minister, began to unwind the socialist state through currency liberalizations and privatizations. By the end of the decade, successful new ICT firms abounded, Israel had a higher share of ICT employment than any OECD country and ICT exports tripled, accounting for one-third of Israel’s exports. Counting other high-tech industries in medicine, bio-technology, materials technology, and military technology, startups were forming at the rate of 500 a year.
Netanyahu’s influence on the economy became more pronounced in 2003 when after a stint out of power his Likud Party returned to office — in the midst of Israel’s worst recession ever. Given a free hand as minister of finance in a government that had the ability to enact sweeping change, Netanyahu cut the corporate tax rate in half, from 36 per cent to 18, and the top individual tax by one-third, from 64 per cent to 44. He raised the retirement age; lowered welfare dependency; privatized banks, refineries, the national airline and shipping; and deregulated much of the rest of the economy. Economic growth soared, unemployment plunged, and foreign investment reached record highs.
With Netanyahu now Israel’s longest serving prime minister — a win in Monday’s general election would give him his fifth term — Israel’s economy has never looked stronger. It boasts among the developed world’s highest economic growth rates and lowest unemployment rates and it now ranks among the world’s leaders in patents filed and science Nobels won per capita. Foreign multinationals such as Microsoft, Apple, Intel and Samsung have established more than 400 in-country research centres to participate in Israel’s innovation culture. Google’s Eric Schmidt has said, “Israel is the most important high-tech centre in the world after the U.S.” Cisco’s John Chambers has described Israel as “ahead of every other country in innovation.”
Numerous analyses provide explanations for Israel’s success in startups, which now amount to one for every 1,400 people. Many point to Israel’s universal military draft, which creates leadership and teamwork skills in a risk-assessing environment. Doubtless that’s true. But the draft existed long before the Startup Nation, so it alone doesn’t explain much. Others point to the 1990s immigration of one million Russians from the former Soviet Union, many of them highly skilled in mathematics, engineering and science. Under the Soviet system, their skills had been largely wasted. They have thrived in Netanyahu’s Israel but would they have fared as well in the Soviet-lite economic system that socialist Israel pursued before Netanyahu’s reforms? Others point to Israelis’ questioning culture. Or to a French arms embargo after the 1967 Six Day War that forced Israel into developing its own weaponry, which led to technologies that later became exportable.
These and other factors all played a role, even an outsized role, in Israel becoming the Startup Nation. But without Netanyahu’s economic reforms, that Startup Nation would have been slower to start and may well have sputtered along for years. Netanyahu was the catalyst that energized the startup components, and then supercharged their launch, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts and turning a sluggish socialist economy into a dynamo.
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe.
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-netanyahu-took-israel-from-nation-of-orange-groves-to-one-that-grows-inventions
He's the catalyst that turned a sluggish socialist economy into a dynamo
Lawrence Solomon
February 28, 2020
9:50 AM EST
Before Israel became known as the Startup Nation, its signature exports were Jaffa oranges and other agricultural products. Theories abound as to how Israel morphed from a nation of orange groves to one that grows inventions by the bushel but no one seems to give credit where it is arguably due the most — to the economic policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, whose rise to power coincides with the rise of the Startup Nation.
Before the Netanyahu era, Israel under Labor governments was a darling of the Socialist International but an innovation laggard, meriting no Nobel Prizes in the sciences, filing few international patents and developing only one or two successful firms per year in information and communications technologies (ICT), the field encompassing computers and the internet. Previous left-wing governments, despite earnest programs designed to promote industry — including at one point manufacture of a home-grown fibreglass automobile — enjoyed but modest success.
Then in 1996 when the Likud Party came to power Netanyahu, as both prime minister and science and technology minister, began to unwind the socialist state through currency liberalizations and privatizations. By the end of the decade, successful new ICT firms abounded, Israel had a higher share of ICT employment than any OECD country and ICT exports tripled, accounting for one-third of Israel’s exports. Counting other high-tech industries in medicine, bio-technology, materials technology, and military technology, startups were forming at the rate of 500 a year.
Netanyahu’s influence on the economy became more pronounced in 2003 when after a stint out of power his Likud Party returned to office — in the midst of Israel’s worst recession ever. Given a free hand as minister of finance in a government that had the ability to enact sweeping change, Netanyahu cut the corporate tax rate in half, from 36 per cent to 18, and the top individual tax by one-third, from 64 per cent to 44. He raised the retirement age; lowered welfare dependency; privatized banks, refineries, the national airline and shipping; and deregulated much of the rest of the economy. Economic growth soared, unemployment plunged, and foreign investment reached record highs.
With Netanyahu now Israel’s longest serving prime minister — a win in Monday’s general election would give him his fifth term — Israel’s economy has never looked stronger. It boasts among the developed world’s highest economic growth rates and lowest unemployment rates and it now ranks among the world’s leaders in patents filed and science Nobels won per capita. Foreign multinationals such as Microsoft, Apple, Intel and Samsung have established more than 400 in-country research centres to participate in Israel’s innovation culture. Google’s Eric Schmidt has said, “Israel is the most important high-tech centre in the world after the U.S.” Cisco’s John Chambers has described Israel as “ahead of every other country in innovation.”
Numerous analyses provide explanations for Israel’s success in startups, which now amount to one for every 1,400 people. Many point to Israel’s universal military draft, which creates leadership and teamwork skills in a risk-assessing environment. Doubtless that’s true. But the draft existed long before the Startup Nation, so it alone doesn’t explain much. Others point to the 1990s immigration of one million Russians from the former Soviet Union, many of them highly skilled in mathematics, engineering and science. Under the Soviet system, their skills had been largely wasted. They have thrived in Netanyahu’s Israel but would they have fared as well in the Soviet-lite economic system that socialist Israel pursued before Netanyahu’s reforms? Others point to Israelis’ questioning culture. Or to a French arms embargo after the 1967 Six Day War that forced Israel into developing its own weaponry, which led to technologies that later became exportable.
These and other factors all played a role, even an outsized role, in Israel becoming the Startup Nation. But without Netanyahu’s economic reforms, that Startup Nation would have been slower to start and may well have sputtered along for years. Netanyahu was the catalyst that energized the startup components, and then supercharged their launch, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts and turning a sluggish socialist economy into a dynamo.
Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe.
https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/lawrence-solomon-netanyahu-took-israel-from-nation-of-orange-groves-to-one-that-grows-inventions
Hektorović- Posts : 26373
2018-04-10
Re: Odbacivanjem socijalizma Izrael je postao tehnološki div
by Guest 1/3/2020, 08:13
umni i inventivni pokretac,danasnjeg tehnoloskog zapada..(svabi znanstvenici su u jemerici izumrli)
Guest- Guest
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