Why aren't U.S. engineers politicians? Does it matter?

2 points by Elite 15 years ago | 4 comments

Hu Jintao, the president of China was a civil engineer. As are many senior government officials.

The former president of India from 2002-2007, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam was an aeronautical engineer.

So is Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, from Iran.

Does it matter that I'd be hard pressed to see an engineer rise to the president in the U.S.? (Then again I would have said that about a black president in 2005)

Is there any useful information to extract from the oBservations that China and India have a significant amount of powerful leaders as former engineers?

byoung2 15 years ago |

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover

hga 15 years ago | |

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter#Naval_career

It doesn't look good that two of America's worst and most hapless 20th century presidents were the two who were engineers.

sabj 15 years ago |

In China, I think you can look at some interesting historical contingencies which led to more engineers getting into politics. See also, the unique nature of CCP party membership and political life, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qinghua_clique

maxawaytoolong 15 years ago |

Is there any useful information to extract from the oBservations that China and India have a significant amount of powerful leaders as former engineers?

Keep engineers out of government unless you want your country to be like India or China?