Podbit · Planet Money
China's senior leadership has, at various points, been entirely composed of engineers — and engineers build. The problem is when they apply that same literal mindset to society, treating human beings as building materials to be moved and remolded.
Where this was said
At 2:58 · chapter starts 0:55
Smith sets the historical stage with a recording from Planet Money's 2012 China trip — a jubilant announcement aboard the Beijing-Shanghai bullet train — before introducing guest professor Dan Wang, a Stanford Hoover Institution fellow and author of 'Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future.' Wang's thesis is elegant and unsettling: China is an 'engineering state' because its senior leadership has historically held engineering degrees, shaping a governing philosophy that treats every problem — economic, social, demographic — as a construction challenge. [1] — Dan Wang "China's senior leadership has, at various points, been entirely composed of engineers — and engineers build. The problem is when they apply…" 02:58 Wang and Smith tease out the difference between the US (a lawyer culture that litigates before it builds) and China (which builds first, litigates never). The prior General Secretary built a dam; the current one studied chemical engineering. This is not metaphor — it is policy.
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