China v USA (Ruling Class: Engineers v Lawyers)

[marting]

Interesting article in the Atlantic

A Nation of Lawyers Confronts China’s Engineering State

As the Chinese economy surges forward, the U.S. has lost its capacity for physical improvement.

www.theatlantic.com

Some excerpts:

How did America lose so much productive capacity to China and end up in such a vulnerable position? Think about it this way: China is an engineering state, which treats construction projects and technological primacy as the solution to all of its problems, whereas the United States is a lawyerly society, obsessed with protecting wealth by making rules rather than producing material goods. Successive American administrations have attempted to counter Beijing through legalism—levying tariffs and designing an ever more exquisite sanctions regime ...

Xiaoping promoted engineers to the top ranks of China’s government from the 1980s onward. By 2002, all nine members of the politburo’s standing committee—the apex of the Communist Party—had trained as engineers.

This is scary. I had no idea engineers were so dominant in the Chinese ruling party.

 

[Trebuchet]

Paywalled for me. I may go ahead and do the free trial.
But it's not just lawyers. Business schools like Harvard have spent about the last five decades that manufacturing should only be done by low paid labor in other countries, never in the USA.

 

[Gulliver Foyle]

Interesting article in the Atlantic

A Nation of Lawyers Confronts China’s Engineering State

As the Chinese economy surges forward, the U.S. has lost its capacity for physical improvement.

www.theatlantic.com

Some excerpts:





This is scary. I had no idea engineers were so dominant in the Chinese ruling party.

China isn't a country of engineer rulers, it's a country of aristocratic rulers.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

China isn't a country of engineer rulers, it's a country of aristocratic rulers.

it's both

 

[Trebuchet]

Boeing used to be a great engineering company. Its last competent CEO was Frank Shrontz, a lawyer. He was succeeded by Phil Condit, an engineer, who destroyed the company by selling it to McDonnell with Boeing's money.
I'm an engineer myself. I've long observed that we don't make very good managers.

 

[theprestige]

it's both

That explains why they had to import the balls for their ball point pens from Japan. And why it's a Dutch company that makes all the photolithography machines they use in their chip fabs. And why they still can't make a supersonic jet engine on par with western models. /s

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Yes it does.
China could do all these things if they wanted, with time, but they have other priorities.
.it also explains why it is world leader in plenty of industries the US has no hope of catching up to.

People underestimate a power with twice the industrial production and electricity of the US at their own peril.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Zuckerberg just demonstrated the cutting edge of US technology.

Meanwhile, China is producing half the steel in the world, most of the solar panels, lithium batteries, smart devices and electric cars.
By many estimates, it would take a Western Country at least 10 years to get to the technological level on Rare Earth Mining that China is currently using. That is the reason why no one else is doing it, not that it isn't abundant elsewhere.

The time when the West could feel smug about being more technologically advanced are long gone.

 

[jeremyp]

Paywalled for me. I may go ahead and do the free trial.
But it's not just lawyers. Business schools like Harvard have spent about the last five decades that manufacturing should only be done by low paid labor in other countries, never in the USA.

Yes. If the same thing can be made more cheaply by people in China than by people in America, then the consumers will generally buy the cheap version from China. It's good business sense to make things in the cheapest place possible because, if you don't, somebody else will and they will put you out of business.

Is that not obvious?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Cheaper including the cost of transportation.

The basis of all globalization is container shipping, developed for the Korean War.
The easiest way to accelerate reshoring is to make shipping more expensive through higher environmental standards.

 

[8enotto]

Chinese steel has proven to be a bit unreliable. Chinese export military equipment is proving to be a generation behind and suffering from flawed metals. This causes gun explosions and poor performance. Military aviation is recycled Russian design or cold war tech.

They are capable of good, high technology advances but not making it a priority.

What China excells at is cheap mass production. Everyone benefits from getting a lower priced product from them short term. EV is one area they are leading worldwide like that.

Love it or hate it it's what we got.

 

[Steve]

Boeing used to be a great engineering company. Its last competent CEO was Frank Shrontz, a lawyer. He was succeeded by Phil Condit, an engineer, who destroyed the company by selling it to McDonnell with Boeing's money.
I'm an engineer myself. I've long observed that we don't make very good managers.

I spent 43 years being managed by engineers. They definitely make lousy managers. Never understood why university educated professionals would run a business based on submitting the lowest bid for a project.

 

[jimbob]

Zuckerberg just demonstrated the cutting edge of US technology.

Meanwhile, China is producing half the steel in the world, most of the solar panels, lithium batteries, smart devices and electric cars.
By many estimates, it would take a Western Country at least 10 years to get to the technological level on Rare Earth Mining that China is currently using. That is the reason why no one else is doing it, not that it isn't abundant elsewhere.

The time when the West could feel smug about being more technologically advanced are long gone.

I think China has taken the lesson that was mentioned in my Master's course about Japan dominating a not very exciting but vital bit of technology. At the time it was CRT tubes for computer monitors etc, but loads of the commodity semiconductors have their supply chains involving China. Not just the rare earth metals, but lots of the "boring" parts of the manufacturing process. Which could go elsewhere but not quickly.

 

[catsmate]

Yes. If the same thing can be made more cheaply by people in China than by people in America, then the consumers will generally buy the cheap version from China. It's good business sense to make things in the cheapest place possible because, if you don't, somebody else will and they will put you out of business.

Is that not obvious?

What about the cheaper product made by robot?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

China has more industrial robots than the US