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>> they’re Japanese so they’re good at building infrastructure This argument strays into racism, or a circular argument. Either the Japanese are uniquely genet
by OldManAndTheCpp 8y ago
>> they’re Japanese so they’re good at building infrastructure
This argument strays into racism, or a circular argument. Either the Japanese are uniquely genetically capable of building public goods cheaply, or their continued success is a result of how they have structured their society.
If it isn’t genetic (how could it be?), this is an argument for emulating the uniquely Japanese cultural aspects that led to the success.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 8y agoI’m saying that it’s a matter of culture, not policy (and certainly not genetics). You can’t replicate it just by cherry picking some of their policies. And it’s very hard to change culture. The Japanese take pride in infrastructure and development. Americans try to figure out how to abuse environmental laws to keep it from being built. We turn every development project into a civil rights battle or a rural/urban battle. We hate paying for development with visible taxes, but love creating invisible taxes by attaching mandates as riders to projects. “You can build that apartment building, but only if you widen that public road and build a school. You can build fiber there, but only if you also build fiber in this place where it makes no economic sense.” That often makes development unattractive altogether, but that’s okay because we hate development anyway.