[lbo-talk] Kees van der Pijl

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

> 'We have no idea,' she said (paraphrasing from memory
> now), 'how various peoples would have developed if
> left to their own devices because Roman intervention
> brought self-development to a halt.'

Jared Diamond, _Guns, Germs, and Steel_ addresses that question by
comparing societies that were geographically isolated (and thus could
count only on sel-development) to those that were not (and thus
cross-polinated one another so to speak).  His conclusions are that
self-development does not lead anywhere but backwardness and
stangantion.

"Self-development" is a ruse invented by thrid world nationalists and
the "noble savage" intellectuals in the developed world.

Wojtek