> Whether these things are dealt with better by authoritarian or
> nonauthoritarian socities (using the words in the vague conventional
> sense, where "nonauthoritarian" means "parliamentary democracy" --
> which incidentally Russia IMO is; if Russia is authoritarian, then so
> was Gaullist France or Japan in 1980) has yet to be seen. They haven't
> been around for long.
I don't quite agree with the parenthetical, but yes, time will tell. Anyway, since we're probably boring everyone else, I'm going to switch to discussing this off the list.