Sowing Dragons

[Brad De Long]

>No, Brad, some of the elites might be inclined to form death squads.  Some
>would discover what Dani Rodrik proposes.  More important, the U.S. leaders
>would be more careful to avoid doing as much damage.  They might want Paraguay
>or some other spot to become a Potemkin village.
>
>Brad De Long wrote:
>
>>
>>  So that if Brazil were to go Stalinist, elites all over the rest of
>>  South America would suddenly recognize the benefits of soft rule,
>>  civil procedure, social democracy, and policies aimed at growing the
>  > pie rather than making sure the non-elite are kept away from it?
>
>--

Good answers. But they should be addressed to Dennis. He's the person 
who thinks that pressure (from the Soviet Union or Maoist China) 
induced *moderation* on the part of elites and an interest in strong 
economic development--hence the post-WWII western European miracle 
and the subsequent post-1960 East Asian miracle.

I'm more agnostic--for the reasons that you lay out. 
Sometimes--usually--the reaction to pressure is radicalization to the 
right: death squads and such.

By the way, post-WWII economic development in Japan, South Korea, 
Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Italy, 
Spain, Portugal, and Greece is not well characterized as a "Potemkin 
village."

Brad DeLong
-- 

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
"Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing the quantity theory 
of money] is probably true.... But this long run is a misleading 
guide to current affairs. **In the long run** we are all dead. 
Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in 
tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long 
past the ocean is flat again."

 
--J.M. Keynes
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
J. Bradford De Long; Professor of Economics, U.C. Berkeley;
Co-Editor, Journal of Economic Perspectives.
Dept. of Economics, U.C. Berkeley, #3880
Berkeley, CA 94720-3880
(510) 643-4027; (925) 283-2709 phones
(510) 642-6615; (925) 283-3897 faxes
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/
<delong at econ.berkeley.edu>