Jay, Steven, Seppo,
Thanks for your thoughts about the ending of the Cold War. It will come as no surprise that I agree with Seppo and Steven. Actually there were a several people in the US writing about the dry rot in the USSR before Reagan came to power. One was Dan Moynihan in the late 70s. They were not listened to, they were drowned out by the "anti-commie" attitudes of the majority in the US; indeed, it was the self-interested rhetoric of the Soviet government itself as well the entrenched establishment in the US that was heeded for a number of reasons that I won't go into here. I knew a number of individuals who traveled to the Soviet Union to study in the 70s, and they all knew. In private conversations with Soviet citizens, even most of the the Soviet citizens knew that their government was fundamentally corrupt and bankrupt, though they had no idea what to replace it with, or how to do so. The famous joke "Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man; socialism is the opposite" was widely shared as bottles of vodka were passed about.
I urge you to read Stockman's book. It expresses a fascinating view of the inside of the Reagan Administration. I don't really want to get into a pro and contra Reagan/Clinton discussion here (or anywhere else on SI, for that matter), but it bears some serious research and reflection.
Sincerely,
Sam |
