[WS:} Yeah, but there is this period prior to that, when being free from disease, pain, starvation, elements etc. makes all the difference in the world. Are you saying that doubling the average life expectancy, eradicating many deadly diseases, reducing hunger, allowing people to move around etc. was not worth it?
Wojtek
On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 2:56 PM, <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
> Toil and grow rich,
> What’s that but to lie
> With a foul witch
> And after, drained dry,
> To be brought
> To the chamber where
> Lies one long sought
> With despair.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Wojtek S" <wsoko52 at gmail.com>
>
> Joanna, I think you are missing the point of this discussion. If
> moral virtues could improve the lot of the humankind, religions would
> be all that is needed. The point of the USSR being a superpower was
> not their military, but rather that it created enough productive
> potential to a superpower, which takes a lot for what used to be
> backward country. We could argue whether that productive potential
> could have been put to a better use that the military gear - but that
> is beside the point. The point is that their created that potential
> in direct contradiction of the pseudo science of economics tells us
> about "balancing" supply and demand, budgets etc.
>
> PS. I think that most people (save a few die hard idealistic
> intellectuals) would prefer to be rich and live amongst selfish
> bastards than to be poor and live amongst the virtuous.
>
> Wojtek
>
>
>
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