Breakneck: China’s Engineer State Vs. America Lawyerly State

Scientific and technological advances happen independent of advances in freedoms and individual rights. Breakneck by Dan Wang chronicles the engineer state of China with the lawyerly state of America. Wang uses the point that Soviet scientists would be released from the Gulag and go on to win Nobel Prizes for Russia.

The destruction of science under this administration will have lasting effects. Although we are not an engineering state with many infrastructure projects, America is an innovative country set to invent many technological advancements while not having the important process knowledge in manufacturing. Basically, Americans are the ideas people and then it’s outsourced to China to be made.

It’s important to note that the brain drain created by firing massive American government scientists and curtailing immigration from China, India and the rest of the world might be devastating for the economic innovation America seeks. There seems to be only one role for individuals in this economy and it’s in the private sector with the ability to profit maximize while not contributing anything to society.

China believes less in the virtual reality of social media and eCommerce and instead builds its scientific and technological advances based on real world application. So, Chinese aren’t off creating social media applications, but wind, solar, and nuclear power to build an alternative economy to counting on Middle Eastern oil.

This American generation will see vaccine mandates curtailed, research to cure cancer defunded, and advancements in scientific research wane. We are a lawyerly state meant to build individual rights instead of projects that build material wealth for impoverished Americans. America offers no material gain to its most vulnerable like China does, leading to the malaise and inequality that will eventually lead to a generation of low-income workers inevitable revolt against the massive income and wealth and material inequality in the states and growth of the answer to conservatism, a progressive option for economic and societal equality.