> Any culture which features some of the highest real wages in the world/
> intelligent industrial policies/world-class mass-transit systems/the
> lowest gap between the rich and poor of any industrialized
> country/universal health insurance/collective solidarity and assistance
> can't be all bad.
True enough on wages, transit, wealth gap and (maybe) health insurance. They also have a low, but rising, violent crime rate. But, from everything I can tell industrial policy hasn't worked since the late 70's at the latest. And the collective solidarity is still not all that collective (or collective differently) if you're a woman or ethnic Chinese.
>
> Plus, they actually bother to count the votes in their elections, unlike
> some ex-superpowers we could name.
Which is a real accomplishment if you have only one party vying for parliamentary and executive control.
-Christian