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Tyler Cowen had Dan Wang (author of Breakneck, originator of the 'China is run by engineers, US is run by lawyers' meme) on his podcast last week. IMO, Tyler's podcast is at it's best when he's debating rather than interviewing, part of why his year-end reviews are some of his best episodes. It's particularly interesting watching someone intelligent actually defend America and moreover champion causes that inevitably would code as lower-status to the intellectual class.
tl;dr, Tyler's views —
Massive quotes incoming. Skip ahead if you don't want to read Tyler's arguments:
And honestly, this seems to me to be the revealed preferences of most people. Europeans and Chinese who move to the US largely move to the burbs and buy the big car even while (at least the former) tut-tutting about how barbaric it all is. People, at least once they hit a certain age, want the SFH and the big yard with the fence and the space to raise their children.
On the pandemic and vaccines:
And yet. And yet! At one point we have this brief exchange:
I can buy some of Tyler's takes, and as I mentioned it's refreshing to see an actual contrarian take about the competence of America. But at some point, it just transcends a contrarian take into cope territory. Why are we complacently accepting that China is going to be the global center for auto manufacturing on top of drones and everything else? Life might be good now, but if China is just 1950s America, and 1950s America was just 19th century Britain, aren't we headed for the same stagnation and broad irrelevance of the UK today?
Maybe some of the catastrophizing about China is overwrought and some of America's apparent weaknesses are just the invisible hand of the market moving in mysterious ways, while the gleaming bridges and HSR to nowhere are albatross projects and a drag on growth. Maybe our apparent decadence and vice are really just the product of a system optimized for giving it's people a good life, while Chinese grind 996 work weeks for shit wages to stroke Xi Jinping's ego. But man, I don't want to get hit with the rare earth metals stick whenever the POTUS doesn't kowtow to the emperor. I'm still torn between whether the economists should be running the show or whether we should keep them as far away from the levers of power as possible.
Make some actual tariffs that bite and laws that promote onshoring; and if consumers don't even notice an increase in prices it ain't working. If your argument is that we can't match the Chinese in whatever way, deregulate or bring Chinese companies here so we can learn from them or do whatever it takes to compete. Instead, we just decided to sell them H200s and erode one of our few remaining advantages (maybe someone more plugged in can comment on how significant this is?).
Bizarre question by Cowen
Cowen retroactively defines an attractive suburb as a sprawling American suburb. No wonder Wang is confused.
American suburbs are the result of uniquely American circumstances from the mid/late 20th century: white flight, stranger danger, infinite money, fertile population, car lobbies & cheap gas. China has little to do with these circumstances and therefore, little to do with the American suburb.
Agreed. The whole "suburb" thing as defined here in uniquely American. Here in the UK we also have homes with a yard and a dog and a car (though some of the most expensive properties in central London won't have an exclusive yard and potentially not even off street parking given that they literally share walls with their neighboring super expensive properties (they are terraced, not detached). They are amazing places to live (hence the prices) but Cowen's phrasing would put them as not "attractive".
Plus the whole controlling your school district is a very American thing as well, it just seems quaint and weird in the UK: schooling should be run by professionals, not the whims of a bunch of parents who don't know shit about pedagogy. As we move to a more and more multi polar world US citizens need to realize that the rest of the world doesn't think like them and while in the past they had the luxury of being able to ignore what we said without much consequence this is fast dissipating and they will now need to learn some cultural sensitivity like the rest of us.
In a better world yes. Unfortunately some of our professionals like to ban teaching phonics and think Gender Queer is good content for 8 year olds. I like having a democratic veto over these people. If the school board goes looney enough then they can be voted out. As a taxpaying voter I get a say.
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