Does America need to be more like a society of engineers?

As China is, or a society of lawyers?

There are two books this year that are being talked about more than any other, by an order of magnitude. 

One is Abundance, by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. 

The other is Dan Wang’s Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future.


From 2003 to 2013, Shanghai added as much subway track as in the entire system in New York City. 

In 2025, 51 Chinese cities have subway lines, 11 of which are longer than New York’s.

China now has a longer high-speed rail network than the rest of the world put together. 

The U.S. has just one nuclear reactor under construction; China has 31. 

China built housing. Its urban population has grown by an average of 16 million people each year since 1978, 

built a new city the size of greater New York City and greater Boston combined every year for 35 years. 

But the most striking thing about China’s construction is that even its poorest provinces have better infrastructure than America’s richest.

And so on.

The Free Press 5 September 2025

https://www.thefp.com/p/china-builds-america-blocks-why-infrastructure-policy-building-big


Deng visited Singapore in November 1978

https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2024/06/deng-xiaoping-ran-china-despite-having.html






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