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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dale Baker who wrote (13236)	2/24/2006 3:31:48 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541842

I can't support communist mechanisms (even though their goals are noble)- but I like some of what France has done (to name a socialist democracy). It's been somewhat protective of industries- and I read a book on this a while ago, seems to me there were some very good ideas in it wrt French corporations. Were they perfect? No. But the French have mostly stayed in France- no big outward migrations for them. They've got some interesting ways of protecting both culture and work. Off the top of my head, I think of them when I think of more government, and more protective government, but with wars that have raged across Europe (and elsewhere) I'm not sure how we get to "several generations"- not to mention the development of modern industry, and the shift from agrarian economies. I don't think we're looking for stability on a geologic time scale here- I'm just saying corporations don't pay for the damage they do- that's hardly a communist manifesto.

To: Dale Baker who wrote (13236)	2/24/2006 4:05:07 PM
From: thames_sider	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 541842

Can you point to examples in the world, now or in the past, where government-mandated and controlled investment created long-term steady employment for a locality over several generations? Since WWII, Singapore, Luxembourg, Sweden and Norway all match to some extent. They're all special cases in their own ways, but each have heavy controls and direction upon private investment and/or government spending (Luxembourg in a particularly unusual fashion). Of course, there are far more failures. Maybe these exceptions prove that it requires particularly fine and foresighted government, which is indeed in extremely short supply...