> What does it say about progress that the same laws that protect human rights also stifle innovation?
Innovative methods to destroy human life are "stifled" by measures intended to preserve human life. What to you mean by "progress" -- the betterment of the human condition, or the enrichment of the few and powerful?
It's just a very obvious point, evidenced by where most companies end up being created. Europe's main innovation failure is a failure to recognise the value in taking a risk, and instead to reward people who don't from the people who do. But that still makes it a good place to do bread and better work - old school fabrication of cheap, old-process chips is a good example.
