Top Ways to Kill Innovation

I have heard a reasonably coherent argument that a strong central system can be beneficial to a state that is "behind." These are less reliant on big revolutionary innovations. They have industries that get a lot of benefit from just simple capital investment. Basically, since you can see the path to a more prosperous future relatively clearly from the present, you can plan the economy more efficiently. In some cases this might be more efficient then allowing the economy to plan its own course.

Take some large country with an underdeveloped economy but no prohibitive political or social hang-ups. If you try to imagine a prosperous future for it, you can usually see some of the parts of it. Agricultural methods (assuming that you think agriculture will play a big part of that economy) will need to improve. This will over time, yield 2-3 times more crops with the same amount of land and fewer workers. You know what those methods are and you might even be able to guess at the appropriate ownership structure (micro farmers vs larger farmers with employees vs cooperatives vs corporate farms, etc.) because you have examples. The country might need a industrial/manufacturing industry. You don't really need the market to figure out what a good industrial complex looks like or what conditions are needed because you have examples.

Germany (to take a random example) is not really in that position. You won't be as accurate in your guesses.

Every society has its heresies and enforced loyalties. We have a term in the U.S. for heresy - "politically incorrect". In the U.S. it's hard to imagine an outspoken proponent of human biodiversity making it very far in life. No CEO would dare speak in favor of HBD advocate, it would open up the entire company to lawsuits.

As for as economic intrusion goes, China is really a unique case. They've invented a new form of capitalism that works very well -- the state government owns some companies, the state government owns shares in other publicly traded companies, local governments own some companies or shares in companies, and some companies have no government ownership.

In the U.S. the government exacts dividends from corporations in the form of corporate taxes, and exercises management control via regulation (OSHA, civil right legislation, workplace rules, etc. etc.) The Chinese system of openly owning shares is similar, but perhaps more efficient.