populism vs. Marxism (was RE: Frank Sinatra)

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Mon May 18 11:48:03 PDT 1998



>At 08:26 AM 5/18/98 -0700, Brad DeLong wrote:
>>Re:
>>>
>>>criterion that matters in evaluating them is the 'whose thug?' -- for
>>>every national leader's closet hides plenty of skeletons. I do not think
>>>these figures are any more or less reprehensible than Rosevelets, Trumans,
>>>Nixons, or Reagans.
>>
>>Surely the magnitude of the body count matters?
>
>
>Not really. Political leaders are like mosquitos - opportunistic
>bloodsuckers (that, BTW, holds for corporate management as well). How much
>they suck depends not on their own ability to suck (for they possess none),
>but on the blood pressure in the vessel into which they happen to tap. In
>other words, the amount of blood they sucked or spilled in the function of
>the opportunity they encounter.

Surely to kill 20,000,000 or more in territories that *you* *rule* (an achievement managed by Hitler, Mao, Stalin, and no one else in world history) requires not just "opportunity" but a certain "enthusiasm" for the task... Or are you saying that *anyone*--Franklin Roosevelt, Jerry Brown, Nikolai Bukharin--who had been seated in the Kremlin as General Secretary in the 1930s would have wound up with a similar butcher's bill?

Brad DeLong



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