The Epistemological Ceiling of Authoritarian Innovation: Engineering Mobilization versus Ecological Autonomy in Tech-Polemics

Abstract

The rapid technological ascent of state-capitalist regimes—most prominently China—has ignited afundamental debate in international political economy: does technological innovation necessitate liberaldemocracy and open discourse, or can centralized authoritarian states out-scale market economies throughtop-down resource mobilization? This paper presents a novel theoretical framework to resolve this debate bybifurcating innovation into two distinct functional domains: Mission-Oriented Engineering Mobilization(the "1-to-100" phase) and Ecological Autonomy (the "0-to-1" phase). We argue that while authoritarianstates exhibit unparalleled efficiency in mobilizing capital, data, and institutional alignment to scale knowntechnological paradigms, they confront an insurmountable "Epistemological Ceiling." Because regimesurvival mandates ideological conformity, political risk reduction, and information censorship, authoritariansystems inherently suppress the non-conformist, decentralized, and unscripted inquiry necessary forfoundational, paradigm-shifting discoveries. Consequently, state-led technological dominance remains boundto catch-up optimization, proving incapable of generating self-sustaining, long-term technological leadership.