Dan Wang on What China and America Can Learn from Each Other

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Help us keep the conversations going in 2026. <a href= "https://mercatus.donorsupport.co/page/cowenconvos26?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=shownotes&utm_campaign=eoy26"> Donate</a> to Conversations with Tyler today.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Dan Wang argues that China is a nation of engineers while America is a nation of lawyers, and this distinction explains everything from subway construction to pandemic response to why Chinese citizens will never have yards with dogs. His prescription: America should become 20% more engineering-minded to fix its broken infrastructure, while China needs to be 50% more lawyerly so the Communist Party can stop strangling individual rights and the creative impulses of its people. But would a more lawyerly China constrain state power, or just create new tools for oppression? And aren't the American suburbs actually sterling achievements where the infrastructure works quite well?</p> <p class="MsoNo...