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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush

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To: Neocon who wrote (3121)5/18/2001 1:18:15 PM
From: jttmab  Read Replies (1) of 93284
 
Let's suppose that you live in one of those states that periodically gets snow. Let's let you and/or your neighbors work in a free market. You all can decide how and when the snow gets removed. Certainly this of less import than something like health care.

I've been living in the UK for a short time now and tried to do some observation. I would agree that European left is to the left of US left; it might even be that European moderate right is pretty far to the left in a US sense.

IMO, it's pretty difficult to attribute the entire economic growth advantage that the US has purely to capitalism. You've done it, but I still think it's difficult. The histories and resource base is different. The US is remarkably rich in terms of natural resources. Which has more to do with circumstantial geology than it does with free market. Physical space limitations. The economics with a cattle ranch in the open spaces of the midwest, is a tad different than the economics of cattle ranches in the relative confines of the UK, for example. The age of the countries is certainly a significant factor. Replacement of infrastructures in a country that has a history of 1000 years is different than a country dealing with a history of a paltry 200 years.

Other than that though. Is the metric of goodness of a political system purely it's economic growth rate. He who has a better economic growth rate must live in a political system?

We could compare wealth distribution of a free market system over these social democrat European countries. Europeans have a flatter profile. I could bantor about re-distribution of income as the ultimate evil, but that's nothing more than rhetoric. We could probably agree that a completely flat profile, i.e., all people hold the same percentage of wealth is not healthy. Does it follow that the steeper the profile, i.e., the more wealth is accumulated at the top end is better? Sen Lott seems to think that while the profile has gotten steeper in the last 10 years, it's not steep enough.

jttmab.
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