In defense of lawyers

The more I think about Dan Wang’s book Breakneck the less I think of it. Wang presents America as a country of lawyers — orderly, slow, nothing gets done — and China as a country of engineers, moving fast and breaking things, some of the breakages being described in detail. If only America was ruled more by engineers, or China had more lawyers involved, and we’d have two great countries instead of two deeply flawed ones. I would suggest that the true dichotomy Wang described is not one between lawyers and engineers, but one between rule of law and rule by law. If it ever appears that projects are being bogged down in legalese, I would posit that it is not because too many lawyers are involved but rather than an appropriate number of lawyers is trying to, and I am choosing my words carefully here, stop stupid shit being done. They are not always successful but at least they try. So if it ever appears that infrastructure in America doesn’t get built any more and that nothing ever gets…