Luke Weiger <lweiger at umich.edu> wrote:Justin wrote: > Spoken like a true Sachsian (or Stalinist, same think, other side of the coin), can't make an> omlette, etc. Lets wipe out a coupla generations of Russians in the hope of the radiant future. > Admitting that a given course of action will have negative material consequences that cannot be dismissed is not equivalent to writing off the lives of an entire generation of people. That's just a roundabout way of putting the same point -- at least in this context. The average life expectency of post-Soviet men has dropped to something like 57. A third of the population is poor by Russian standards. That means really, really poor. This was in a country that, as you note, was industrialized. Now workers don't get paid their ($40/mo) wages for six-eight months at a time. Wash out your mouth with soap. > Don't you think the poor Russians have been subject to enough of that sort of crap over the > decades? Moreover, IF a Westerm styl
e market economy is built there! > I think it will be--check back with me in 50 years. Unlike many, I'm willing to make predictions that are falsifiable, and then own up when I'm mistaken (like I initially was with regard to Afghanistan). You were wrong about Afghanistan? How? It's deteriorioated into a chaos of warrlordism. Outside Kabul there is no govt. The NA has lived down to expectations. The US has abandoned the country except as a hunting ground. It's almost as bad as the worst fears that we had. Well, I made a falsifiable prediction about the breakup on the USSR, and I was unfortunately vindicated. Meanwhile we have to make our assessments now based on predictions that are testible in the medium term. The only long term prediction I'mw iolling to stake my life on is that socialism would be better than what we (or the Russians) have now. In ed medium term it was obvious, and is true, that the collapse of the USSR was a predictable catastrophe for at least a gener
ation, probably a century. > And if pigs had wings, they could!
fly! What on earth makes you Sachsians thinks you just go > around building market economies at will? Look at what it cost to build the one we have -- > centuries of blood. > Building a market economy in a country that is _already_ industrialized seems quite feasible so long as it's possible to make the proper governmental reforms (e.g. develop a coherent tort law system). Oh for Christ's sake. You can't just plop down a new set of rules and call them "reforms" and expect everyone to follow them. You're talking about a cultural change that took 500 years in the West. The steam engibe does not give you a workable tort and contract law, an effective banking and credit system, stable property relations, and the level of trust and confidence you need to operate a first world market system. My prediction is that the fSU will continue to drift into third world conditions, more like Brazil or worse than Western Europe. > Sheesh, for a utulitarian, you have a head for fantasy rathe
r than social reality. > Why do you continually insist on drawing a link between what you perceive to be my naivete and my consequentialism (you are, after all, the one who has chastised me in the past for my flights from the political to the philosophical)? Because consequentialism is associated with naive, top-down, simplistic arrogance, by and large. > For that matter, outside of maybe Peter Railton, I'd say the views of most notable consequentialists as to what the political "social realities" are probably resemble mine more closely than yours. As I said about the problem with consequentialism! > May I direct your atention to certain events going over Iraq, in which (though perhaps you > haven't heard) the US has made a claim to permanent, unchallengeable global dominance. > The Rice doctrine ("We're special") has frightening implications. No shit. > But there are many, many reasons for regime change that have nothing to do with hegemony. Of course, those reasons wo
n't appear to have force to those who think the prospect of Ir! aq with a nucear veto over any foreign meddling (uni or mulilateral) in the ME is perhaps not such a bad thing after all. Count me as one. I'm a starting to think the nuclear proliferation might not be such a bad think after all. > There never was a rivalry with the USSR, except maybe in space. The terrible things to which > you refer, you mean what, Vietnam, Korea, Nicaragua, El Salvador? Were not inspired by > feart of a Soviet takeover. The concern was rather for the third world independence. > That's one of the more unique (dare I say fantastic) takes on the cold war that I've ever seen. Henry Kissinger himself now says that preventing Vietnam from becoming communist probably didn't really matter. Now he tells us. > Why? I would guess because it's now readily apparent that carving out our own slice of Vietnam wasn't at all essential to defeating the Soviet Union. Look, the Cold War was a sideshow in the global conflict of 45-89. More on this later. Dinner is on the t
able. jks
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