-----Mensagem original----- De: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]Em nome de Lisa & Ian Murray Enviada em: segunda-feira, 3 de julho de 2000 11:27 Para: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Assunto: Re: RES: Korea's blessing
>From: Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU>
How can you tell which governments are legitimate? It's pretty easy. Legitimate governments:
(a) derive their just powers from the consent of the governed...
(b) secure life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for their citizens...
== -So, let´s examine Castro´s Cuba. 1-Derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. -As the common citizen of Cuba is allowed to keep it´s rifle after -the military service, we can conclude that they agree with Castro´s -regimen, or Castro wouldn´t remain on power....and if you count -state sponsored assassinations, your civil war and genocide of -Indian population costed much more lives than Cuba´s "paredón" 2-Secure life.... -Cubans have an average life expectancy over 70 years, better than -in democratic countries like Brazil or India. On the other hand, -there are 45000000 Americans withouth life insurance. A real shame -in a country that spends more than US$3,000 per capita with health -care. 3-....liberty -A point for you, Brad, up to now Cuba has a score of 1.33/1.66 4-Pursuit of happiness..... -A very difficult point to be evaluated. You can´t say that Cuban -citizens are forbidden to pursuit happiness more than US ones, -simply because you can´t measure it objectively, unless you count -the immigration flux. But this seems to be more a question of -income difference than of political systems ("free" Mexico also -has an important emigration towards USA). So this value is of -no utility after adjustmnet for per capita income.So I will discard this index.
What let´s Casto´s Cuba with 1.5/2 points score (a legitimacy index of 75%) Make those tests for other countries and you will reach strange results. You may discover that dictatorships like China, pre 1990 North Korea, Taiwan, East Europe seems to be strangely legitimate, at least more than democratic countries like Brazil, Mexico and India....
Alexandre Fenelon