China Is Run by Engineers. America Is Run by Lawyers

Summary

Hey there, it’s Stephen Dubner. Before we get started on today’s episode, I’d love your help on a future episode we’re producing — especially if you happen to be a physician. We’re looking into the doctor shortage in the U.S., so if you happen to be a doctor, we want to hear from you. I’d like to know how your workload has changed over time, maybe how your workplace has changed, or if you have anything else on the topic to say you think we might find interesting. Just send a voice memo to radio@freakonomics.com, subject line: doctor shortage. Thanks in advance. Also: we’ll be doing a live taping of Freakonomics Radio as part of Sirius XM Podcasts Month, on Wednesday, October 8th in New York City. There’s room for a few Freakonomics Radio fans to come along, so if you’d like to be one of them, send an email to radio@freakonomics.com, subject line: “live taping.” Thanks for that — and now, on to today’s episode. * * * If you are an American, how do you think about the relationship between the U.S. and China? You may see China as a political and economic bully, and a thief of American intellectual property. You may see China as a hardcore surveillance state — internally and externally; maybe a propaganda state too. But you probably don’t think about the relationship between China and the U.S. the way that Dan Wang thinks about it: Dan WANG: I think that no two peoples are more alike. They have a hastiness around them. They have a sense of being willing to take shortcuts, especially on health and wealth. They both have a sense of the future in a way that I think is not so apparent anymore in Europe or Japan. They’re both striving towards something. But for all those similarities between the U.S. and China, Wang sees one huge difference: China is a country that is run by engineers, while the U.S. is a country run by lawyers. Engineers, he explains, are driven to build while lawyers are driven to argue, and obstruct. Who is Dan Wang, and how did he come to hold this view?...