----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad DeLong" <jbdelong at uclink.berkeley.edu>
-- "Burke ever held, and held rightly, that it can seldom be right toS sacrifice a present benefit for a doubtful advantage in the futureS. It is not wise to look too far ahead; our powers of prediction are slight, our command over results infinitesimal. It is therefore the happiness of our own contemporaries that is our main concern; we should be very chary of sacrificing large numbers of people for the sake of a contingent end, however advantageous that may appearS. We can never know enough to make the chance worth taking. There is this further consideration that is often in need of emphasis: it is not sufficient that the state of affairs which we seek to promote should be better than the state of affairs which preceded it; it must be sufficiently better to make up for the evils of the transitionS"
--John Maynard Keynes
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The very logic that keeps too many people in poverty and lots of others locked up for sticking chemicals in their bodies that authoritarians don't approve of...................
Ian