At 7:59 AM 26/7/99, Martin William Smith wrote:

[...]
>The US won't do it unless and until the rest
>of the world looks like it does:  US style democracy, US style
>capitalism.  Is that slowly happening or not?  It sure looks like it
>to me.

I don't think the people of places like Europe and Australia would stand
still for a backward leap into US-style political democracy. Other places
are moving forward, if slowly. The US is stuck in the 19th century.


[...]

>I just mean that is the way I see it happening.  I think there will be
>a better implementation of social democracy than in the US (which is
>too close to oligarchy), and I think that better implementation will
>be pretty close to what Norway already has.

What does it have?

>  I don't see anarchism
>winning the day because there are too many non-anarchist thinkers.  I
>think there are different kinds of political brain wirings just like
>the differences between the artist brain wiring and the scientist
>brain wiring, for example.  I mean, some people become artists and
>some people become scientists, and some people become corporate or
>military leaders.  Some of the difference among the people who choose
>these different types of work is probably accounted for by differences
>in brain wiring.

Perhaps it's the wiring, perhaps its the programming. Perhaps both. I don't
have any of these particular wirings though, but aspects of all. I have
always presumed everyone did.

> If so, it is reasonable to believe that some of the
>difference between people with left political beliefs and people with
>right political beliefs is also accounted for by differences in brain
>wiring.  If that is right, then I think the best solution, and
>probably the only one acceptable to both ends of the spectrum, is a
>Norwegian style government and economy, where, basically, the right
>wing parties deal with economic issues, the left wing parties deal
>with social issues, and everyone pays high taxes.

I'm not touching that! I haven't got time tom analyse that.

[...]

>> China "...the most powerful economy"? How might that happen?
>
>Apparently it *is* happening now.  Everything I read says that it is
>happening.

My impression is that people think it might happen and are getting in for
their cut. I've got my doubts.

>You're always the pessimist,
>Bill.  You have to get off the island more often.

No mate, I'm the optimist, but you sound *depressingly* pessimistic to me.
I have much greater expectations of humanity than you even seem to conceive
of:

        "A mere property career is not the final destiny of mankind,
        if progress is to be the law of the future as it has been of the past."

        **LEWIS HENRY MORGAN**

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell tas