Thoughts on Breakneck by Dan Wang

Dan Wang's Breakneck offers a genuinely unique take on the roots that divide the United States and China. The core thesis is that China is a nation run by engineers, and thus, for better and worse, is pathologically wired to plan and build. America conversely is a nation run by lawyers with a habit of finding reasons not to do something.

It's an intriguing take, and unique in its political neutrality. Whilst most takes on China and the US revolve around the usual capitalism vs socialism and democracy vs authoritarianism discussions, Dan Wang provides a refreshingly human perspective. Engineers are obsessed with building, they are the hammers through which every problem both physical and social, looks like a nail. Lawyers on the other hand make their living through the ultimately zero-sum wars of litigation.

I really do love this take, because it reveals how idiosyncrasies have an outsize impact on any outcome. Much more so than we tend to give it credit. So often, we look at forces in the world - in business and in politics - as these grand schemes of ideology and strategy, where rock meets water in epic battles for supremacy.

As analysts and writers, we examine the battlefield as theatre, and then invent new heuristics to teach in business school that attempt to formalise the prerequisites for victory. In reality, what actually determines outcomes is largely the idiosyncrasies of the people involved. In business, decisions are influenced by the personalities of founders more than any sound, deterministic strategy. And so in the greatest geopolitical standoff in decades, much can be reduced to simply a difference of personality. It's funny.

Of course, the outcomes of the nations is outsized relative to the triviality of the inputs. In an arena where the stakes are so high, the lawyerly society - or dare I say, a democratic one - has far greater protections to stop bad ideas. Whether the leaders are engineers, lawyers, or any other archetype with unique proclivities becomes irrelevant, the lawyerly society provides guardrails to stop the idiosyncrasies of the few to run roughshod on the rest of us. But it also hinders the idiosyncrasies of the brilliant from getting things done.

The Chinese Communist Party's history is a full circle: from the absolute devastation of the Cultural Revolution through to the glimmering glory of China's current infrastructure and Tier 1 cities, we know everything that the unchecked engineering state can giveth and taketh away. Whether the engineering state is 'right' or 'wrong' strictly depends on which decade you choose to ask that question.

There are many significant challenges with the world's current economic plight worth discussing that are beyond the pale of the engineer vs the lawyer. Every political 'ism' brings its own unique challenges which are well-documented and heavily discussed. The crux of Breakneck is not to rehash these well-worn political discussions. It is to offer a new framing through the lens of engineer and lawyer which represent distinct approaches to tackling the challenges inherent in any political system. You could take a lawyerly mindset to a authoritarian state just as much as you could take an engineering mindset to a democratic state.

This malleability feels key to Dan Wang's thesis, and at the end of the book he does take a stand, stating clearly the view that America's system will prove superior, should they rediscover their appetite for building.

I too agree, academically at least. No doubt that a pluralistic lawyerly society remains inherently anti-fragile. But anecdotally, I've noticed too many instances where the west has become anti-fragile to its own decline. I've watched my home country Australia fumble its way through a devastating housing affordability crisis a quarter-century in the making. The unaffordability of homes has eroded morale amongst the young, favoured parasitic rent-seeking over economic dynamism, and created a burgeoning class-divide in a country that advertises a 'fair go'.

Housing affordability and its myriad impacts is the most popular dinner conversation amongst city-dwelling Australians. Despite the heat of the topic, the country's pluralistic lawyerly bend has left it vegetative - able to perceive the world, comprehend the madness of its trajectory, yet be utterly powerless to impact it.

Conversely in China, we've watched in recent years as the government has engineered an implosion of the nation's housing bubble, with Xi himself declaring that houses are for living in and not for speculation. The short-term pain is real, without question. Many households and businesses in China are reeling and consumer confidence remains stagnant. But the engineers were empowered to do something based on their opinions on what was right, and what was wrong.

The pluralistic lawyerly approach is conversely laissez-faire by design, there is no right or wrong, just the messy, collective mosaic of the commons. But for some things, the inertia of inaction is always wrong. The only unacceptable option is to do nothing, but it is too often the only path the lawyerly society is capable of.

I loved Breakneck and would recommend it to anyone. If you watched and enjoyed Dan Wang's New York Times interview with Ross Douthat, you'll love this book. He writes with grace and intentionality, the same way he speaks. At times I even caught myself reading the book in his voice. Like any thought-provoking thesis, it's left me with more questions than answers.

The west's pluralism is to be celebrated, but it's hard not to be envious at times when China appears so at ease to affect the change that it knows thinks to be right.