Bringing up the stadium in Qatar only further highlights that point: I remember that building project getting tons of press outlining how shockingly bad the safety record was compared to what should be expected.
We already know authoritarian dictatorships (China, Turkey) can still achieve amazing infrastructure projects, damn the cost to human life or displaced poor people.
Fromt eh Western examples, Gotthard Base Tunnel work began in 1999 and it opened almost 17 years later, so that's less than 0.5 deaths/year. The Channel tunnel is then probably the only remaining example.
The other examples prove the point - safety standards have gone up and very few people die during major construction projects
? Qataris use indentured servitude, paying subsistence wages, forcibly holding passports and people in work conditions, not letting them leave, no access to healthcare, making workers 'pay for their debt' of the 'flight from India to Qatar'.
So this is not remotely any kind of basis of comparison for 'why we have a hard time making bridges'.
Japan has a different attitude, they're able to 'make stuff safely' but it's a different culture.