If the policy recommendation for the U.S. is just to spread awareness of the problem to get people excited about building, which then leads to a momentary political coalition that permits a once in a century buildout which ceases once a critical mass of people feel harmed, isn’t that just how the American socio-political system normally works? Even if the US’s history as a civilization is not long relative to other societies, we already have enough data to make out the contours of a cycle.
On the other hand, who knows what a Leninist developmental state with Chinese characteristics will do once its primary reason to exist (rapid development) becomes impossible due to the iron laws of economics? A bureaucratized perpetual revolution seems like a decent proposal for a solution given the CCP’s ideological and historical context, but it remains to be seen whether this will work in the long run.
Although it retains many imperial legacies, the PRC marks a firm break with the past and the history most relevant to guessing what the future may bring to China is even shorter than the U.S.’s. And the lovely thing about an unconstrained centralized corporatist state is that the stakes of “getting it to work” are extremely high, since the party’s failure is everyone’s failure and replacing leaders to get a do-over is not a pretty process.
Meanwhile, when the American developmental state goes into dormancy, the worst that happens is bridges start to rust and pipes leak, leading to complaints and political mobilization, a targeted buildout, and then it goes back into dormancy. Dan Wang relied on vibes of American doomerism and eternal Chinese global hegemony on the horizon to raise the stakes for the U.S., which is understandable given the need to spread awareness. However, in this bilateral comparison, the most obvious difference is unconstrained executive power and I fear increasingly many Americans are taking inspiration from that rather than the actual tactical problem of our built environments.
We’re Americans, nobody is coming to save us but ourselves. We should be angry that we aren’t building, and not because we have a weak state and effete leaders, but because as free people we will not stand for cracked roads and decrepit buildings. The decision to build is public and gathering a sufficiently large coalition requires public education, persuasion, horse trading, maybe a touch of bullying, etc.
In short, my personal sense is that the U.S. actually gets a lot right about its system. Based on Jonathon’s review I believe that the path forward is not to redesign our state and society from the ground up, but to just do politics: pass laws, fund building projects, and relax regulations. Discouraging people from becoming lawyers would not be the most effective use of our effort. Then regarding China, it has done a lot right but the design of its system is still unsettled…and the stakes are troublingly high.
Thoughts welcome and Jonathon rocks for interrogating this book so rigorously.
In line with your prior writings, this is the best synthesis of the "discourse" out there at the moment.
The more structural part of US "checks and balances" leading to lawyerly instincts that don't exist in the Chinese state structure seems to be the best summation of Dan's thesis (even if he doesn't quite make the connection you do between them).
Also enjoyed the travelogue, meeting people writeup at the start of this! Great writing and interactions.
What remains unaddressed is if the US actually needs more engineering of the giant public works kind. You can have an overbuilt infrastructure like Japan which keeps building expensive modern roads to abandoned mountain villages.
I am interested in reading a more fleshed out treatment about idea that today's American malaise has antecedents from well before the movements of the late 60s and 70s. I am not really sure that I agree, but it is an interesting counterpoint to the zeitgeist.
If that was the case, wouldn't the UK be a good counterpoint? It at least used to be a famously centralized country with no codified check of Parliamentary power, and yet they have encountered many of the same problems. Although the UK also has a strong legal tradition.
Perhaps the way to thread the needle is that the latent structure for obstruction and vetocracy was more present in the American tradition than in other countries, but it wasn't well harnessed until 60 years ago?
Interesting piece throughout. I loved the China analysis.
I think we can still subscribe Pettis on this and regard all this as counting backwards. The problem of China is not too few engineers while it says about the problem US has at the moment.
Also since you mentioned Shenzhen, I think two points are worth raising: 1. the engineer corps which built the city in early 80s went into obscurity and a lot of them got far less than they deserved, which is again evidence that it is not engineering, but exploitation that got it done. 2. Back in 2014, when the economy was healthier, there 700 unnamed corpses PER DAY in the city, which totally defeats the sanctimonious 'China is safe' rhetoric. Not that rhetoric stands to much scrutiny, it is just that there hasn't been much scrutiny.
If the policy recommendation for the U.S. is just to spread awareness of the problem to get people excited about building, which then leads to a momentary political coalition that permits a once in a century buildout which ceases once a critical mass of people feel harmed, isn’t that just how the American socio-political system normally works? Even if the US’s history as a civilization is not long relative to other societies, we already have enough data to make out the contours of a cycle.
On the other hand, who knows what a Leninist developmental state with Chinese characteristics will do once its primary reason to exist (rapid development) becomes impossible due to the iron laws of economics? A bureaucratized perpetual revolution seems like a decent proposal for a solution given the CCP’s ideological and historical context, but it remains to be seen whether this will work in the long run.
Although it retains many imperial legacies, the PRC marks a firm break with the past and the history most relevant to guessing what the future may bring to China is even shorter than the U.S.’s. And the lovely thing about an unconstrained centralized corporatist state is that the stakes of “getting it to work” are extremely high, since the party’s failure is everyone’s failure and replacing leaders to get a do-over is not a pretty process.
Meanwhile, when the American developmental state goes into dormancy, the worst that happens is bridges start to rust and pipes leak, leading to complaints and political mobilization, a targeted buildout, and then it goes back into dormancy. Dan Wang relied on vibes of American doomerism and eternal Chinese global hegemony on the horizon to raise the stakes for the U.S., which is understandable given the need to spread awareness. However, in this bilateral comparison, the most obvious difference is unconstrained executive power and I fear increasingly many Americans are taking inspiration from that rather than the actual tactical problem of our built environments.
We’re Americans, nobody is coming to save us but ourselves. We should be angry that we aren’t building, and not because we have a weak state and effete leaders, but because as free people we will not stand for cracked roads and decrepit buildings. The decision to build is public and gathering a sufficiently large coalition requires public education, persuasion, horse trading, maybe a touch of bullying, etc.
In short, my personal sense is that the U.S. actually gets a lot right about its system. Based on Jonathon’s review I believe that the path forward is not to redesign our state and society from the ground up, but to just do politics: pass laws, fund building projects, and relax regulations. Discouraging people from becoming lawyers would not be the most effective use of our effort. Then regarding China, it has done a lot right but the design of its system is still unsettled…and the stakes are troublingly high.
Thoughts welcome and Jonathon rocks for interrogating this book so rigorously.
Wow. A tour de force. Thank you.
In line with your prior writings, this is the best synthesis of the "discourse" out there at the moment.
The more structural part of US "checks and balances" leading to lawyerly instincts that don't exist in the Chinese state structure seems to be the best summation of Dan's thesis (even if he doesn't quite make the connection you do between them).
Also enjoyed the travelogue, meeting people writeup at the start of this! Great writing and interactions.
Truly excellent essay!
What remains unaddressed is if the US actually needs more engineering of the giant public works kind. You can have an overbuilt infrastructure like Japan which keeps building expensive modern roads to abandoned mountain villages.
I am interested in reading a more fleshed out treatment about idea that today's American malaise has antecedents from well before the movements of the late 60s and 70s. I am not really sure that I agree, but it is an interesting counterpoint to the zeitgeist.
If that was the case, wouldn't the UK be a good counterpoint? It at least used to be a famously centralized country with no codified check of Parliamentary power, and yet they have encountered many of the same problems. Although the UK also has a strong legal tradition.
Perhaps the way to thread the needle is that the latent structure for obstruction and vetocracy was more present in the American tradition than in other countries, but it wasn't well harnessed until 60 years ago?
Interesting piece throughout. I loved the China analysis.
I think we can still subscribe Pettis on this and regard all this as counting backwards. The problem of China is not too few engineers while it says about the problem US has at the moment.
Also since you mentioned Shenzhen, I think two points are worth raising: 1. the engineer corps which built the city in early 80s went into obscurity and a lot of them got far less than they deserved, which is again evidence that it is not engineering, but exploitation that got it done. 2. Back in 2014, when the economy was healthier, there 700 unnamed corpses PER DAY in the city, which totally defeats the sanctimonious 'China is safe' rhetoric. Not that rhetoric stands to much scrutiny, it is just that there hasn't been much scrutiny.
sounds like from someone who hasn't needed to make much