In reading some of Dan Wang’s work, I’ve noticed the difficulty of writing in broad strokes about political economies via the personification of nation-states or as a “national character.” Framing countries developmentalist character as if they can be reduced to engineers or lawyers makes for accessible and compelling storytelling (and debates), but it risks giving readers a false sense of understanding by leaning on personifications of complex social dynamics and overly simple metaphors. Good reading though.
A key wrinkle in the telling though is that the decline of U.S. manufacturing wasn’t the result of culture or professional bias or just the dumb luck of historical change—it was a class project carried out within global and domestic power relations, led by financial elites who had extraordinary leverage over the world economy at a specific historical conjuncture. Real people, with real power, made those decisions. It was about profit and control over labor. The “engineer state” vs. “lawyer state” (or whatever) framing glosses over the fact that American statecraft has long privileged capital and private property, giving corporate power the upper hand—from NIMBY politics to the Heritage Foundation’s hand in shaping the judiciary (again, corporate power and labor discipline).
Different state forms mediate class power dynamics in different ways. In the U.S., law codifies capital’s ability to walk away from industrial commitments. In China, the Party-state channels and constrains capital within a developmental project. That tension tells us more than the metaphors do. At the end of the day, labels like “engineering state” or “lawyer state” can be useful as entry points, but they’re misleading if taken at face value.
It’s also worth remembering that these “state” labels have a long history in academic debates. Chalmers Johnson also described the U.S. a developmental state, drawing on Fred Block’s work. Others have since called it an “innovation state,” among other variants. And even David Soskice—co-author of Varieties of Capitalism—has recently walked back his own earlier view of the U.S. as a straightforward liberal market economy, in a new American Political Economy volume edited by Jacob Hacker and colleagues. In other words, these labels are always provisional and contested, and they say as much about the debates surrounding them (or more) as they do about the actual workings of the state (or society for that matter).
The motivation for creating a so-called developmental state needs to be put into context. A lot of the reason these governments adopted industrial policy was for the purpose of military competition. Economic development was a second order effect. The Meiji Restoration happened because of a fear of being colonized.
Countries can grow quite wealthy from resource exports, tourism and/or becoming a business and financial hub. But these industries don't help you win wars even if they might help you lift your countrymen out of poverty.
In reading some of Dan Wang’s work, I’ve noticed the difficulty of writing in broad strokes about political economies via the personification of nation-states or as a “national character.” Framing countries developmentalist character as if they can be reduced to engineers or lawyers makes for accessible and compelling storytelling (and debates), but it risks giving readers a false sense of understanding by leaning on personifications of complex social dynamics and overly simple metaphors. Good reading though.
A key wrinkle in the telling though is that the decline of U.S. manufacturing wasn’t the result of culture or professional bias or just the dumb luck of historical change—it was a class project carried out within global and domestic power relations, led by financial elites who had extraordinary leverage over the world economy at a specific historical conjuncture. Real people, with real power, made those decisions. It was about profit and control over labor. The “engineer state” vs. “lawyer state” (or whatever) framing glosses over the fact that American statecraft has long privileged capital and private property, giving corporate power the upper hand—from NIMBY politics to the Heritage Foundation’s hand in shaping the judiciary (again, corporate power and labor discipline).
Different state forms mediate class power dynamics in different ways. In the U.S., law codifies capital’s ability to walk away from industrial commitments. In China, the Party-state channels and constrains capital within a developmental project. That tension tells us more than the metaphors do. At the end of the day, labels like “engineering state” or “lawyer state” can be useful as entry points, but they’re misleading if taken at face value.
It’s also worth remembering that these “state” labels have a long history in academic debates. Chalmers Johnson also described the U.S. a developmental state, drawing on Fred Block’s work. Others have since called it an “innovation state,” among other variants. And even David Soskice—co-author of Varieties of Capitalism—has recently walked back his own earlier view of the U.S. as a straightforward liberal market economy, in a new American Political Economy volume edited by Jacob Hacker and colleagues. In other words, these labels are always provisional and contested, and they say as much about the debates surrounding them (or more) as they do about the actual workings of the state (or society for that matter).
Nice essay. I’d also recommend the groundbreaking work (no pun intended) of my old ANU colleague Gavan MacCormack, and Norma Field of Chicago U, on Japan’s “construction state” doken kokka 土建国家 from the 1990s (which Gavan continued to update and expand until quite recently): https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9781315285573-2/construction-state-pathology-doken-kokka-gavan-mccormack-norma-field
The motivation for creating a so-called developmental state needs to be put into context. A lot of the reason these governments adopted industrial policy was for the purpose of military competition. Economic development was a second order effect. The Meiji Restoration happened because of a fear of being colonized.
Countries can grow quite wealthy from resource exports, tourism and/or becoming a business and financial hub. But these industries don't help you win wars even if they might help you lift your countrymen out of poverty.