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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George S. Montgomery who wrote (24080)	8/5/1998 7:59:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Respond to of 108807

George, Having lived in the 3rd world most of my adult life, I can entirely sympathize with concerns on the excessive centralization of money. But if you look at long term trends, they point overwhelmingly to decentralization. 150 years ago a tiny clique of European aristocrats sat on top of the world. The combined labor force of what is now the "developing world" worked to provide their surplus, earning slave wages if any, and buying whatever the mother country chose to sell them at whatever price was asked. Late 19th century, along come the Americans with heretic notions about efficient production. The US economy hits some bumps, bigtime, but it prevails, and the European monopoly bites the dust. Late 20th century, along comes Asia. Some bumps in the road, yes. But they won't disappear. In Latin America, countries like Brazil and Argentina don't have the healthiest economies on earth, but they are real, functioning, economies. Africa is still way behind. To my view, the biggest restraint on economic democratization in the last 50 years was political, not economic. Nobody has really tried to estimate the effects of the Cold War on developing economies. Both superpowers fought by proxy in the small countries, propping up and knocking down leaders for reasons totally divorced from competence. The saddest thing is that in many of these countries capable people did exist, but were never considered ideologically acceptable, by either side. The effects have been pretty grim. Hopefully, those days are over, though their legacy is still very much with us. Interesting to see what happens next. Steve