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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Chuck Bleakney who wrote (2511)	3/4/1998 1:18:00 PM
From: Tommaso	Respond to of 9980

Well, during the 1930s there were serious calls for more centralized authority in the U.S., both from fascist sympathizers and even more strongly from communists who then considered the Soviet Union a great success. "Revolution" at one time meant "onward progress in cycles" but since the French Revolution it has implied destruction of the previous government and usually the killing of a lot of people who resist that destruction. The Constitution of the United States provides for, among many other things, the continual replacement (or reaffirmation) of those in power, and it has worked fairly well. Also, the Constitution provides for its own reformation through the amendment process. Nothing is perfect, of course; few people can get elected to national office without spending a lot of money, and many an election comes close to being bought through commercial publicity. But at least we are free to spend our money as we see fit on politics. I work for a state government and nobody ever even dares approach me in that capacity for political contributions--I can support any party or candidate I please. To some extent the state governments now fulfill what was originally designed to be the national government, so that we have a kind of republic of lesser political units more or less modeled on the original national constitution. This is where it seems to me a useful model for a world goverment. The United States is already a kind of empire within itself. Having lived through a period, though, in which there were many in the United States who wished to impose our form democracy on other countries by force, I certainly don't think that is the way to go. Let every country try its own form of government as long as that doesn't mean attacking or damaging in some way another country. In the end I think it was the example of the power of American democracy that undermined the Soviet system of centralized economic power--not military force. I do not favor a strong centralized government because no one is intelligent enough to make decisions for other people on a large scale. I guess maybe my model is my own body. I would hate to have the responsibility for deciding what my liver is going to do next. The liver cells have their own best ways of doing things. I can intervene to some extent either by preventing unnecessary damage to my liver or even getting treatment for it if it is diseased, but not in managing its hourly and daily functions.