The United States is by most metrics the richest country in human history, yet it fails at performing tasks that nations with a fraction of its GDP excel at. The quality of roads, trains, and other forms of infrastructure are poor across the country, and Washington’s political system is gridlocked by parties without any vision for how to enact change.

In his recently published book, Breakneck: China’s Quest to Engineer the Future, Dan Wang offers a critical look at the People’s Republic and asks what the United States can learn from it. While he makes no attempt to look away from China’s suppression of civil liberties, he acknowledges that the United States could learn a great deal from the Communist Party’s ability to rebuild society in a way that improves the living standards of the majority. Wang spoke to Jacobin about the origins of what he calls China’s “engineering state” and why the United States, despite having many other advantages, is held back by a society run by and for lawyers.