pretty common phenom. In B-School they call it the latecomer advantage. Europe/Japan got to rebuild using current tech of post WWII era. They didn’t have to go back to the 19th cent. and start over. Today the third world builds with current tech in the post-national economic system.
Meanwhile we in the USA are using infrastructure/concepts that can be a century old in some cases and wondering why we are having a hard time competing. Consider our rail network vs. Euro/Japan, for example. Or broadband access in US vs. some Asian nations, another example. Or the space program of China.
It’s easier for third worlders to plant a few cell phone towers than to build up a telegraph system, then a land line POTS network and then add cell towers.
We in the west design, invent and create, but it’s difficult and expensive to re-infrastructure an industrial civilization. If you have nothing, you can actually be at an advantage if you choose your investments wisely.
I went to the Philippines a year ago and every store market and almost every kiosk in downtown has an Apple “expert” who can easily jailbreak an Iphone 4 for $4 equivalent. Amazing stuff LOl, they even had the Galaxy Tab 2 months before it hit America.