Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!mcnc!ece-csc!ncrcae!ncr-sd!hp-sdd!hplabs!ucbvax!NOTE.NSF.GOV!fbaube From: fbaube@NOTE.NSF.GOV.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.society.futures Subject: Re: UUCP to USSR Message-ID: <8711121158.aa17574@note.nsf.gov> Date: Thu, 12-Nov-87 15:34:47 EST Article-I.D.: note.8711121158.aa17574 Posted: Thu Nov 12 15:34:47 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 14-Nov-87 14:54:08 EST Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 42 Redirect to alt.poli.sci .. In <2344@sfsup.UUCP> Gerry Gleason writes: > Resources are diverted at all levels for military > purposes, and consequently the US is losing its premier status as > an economic > force. The militarists do not see that the military power > they currently abuse comes directly from this economic power. I for one would be prepared to argue that US hegemony is fading on all planes -- economic, political, military (though *least* of all militarily). Witness European trade with Nicaragua (whose ship's did you think the CIA's mines hit, anyways ?), Baker's lame attempts to get Germany and Japan to further underwrite our fiscal irresponsibility (the proximate cause of the Crash of '87), and so on. For the US under Reagan, decline of economic hegemony and so political hegemony has been an embarrassment swathed in upbeat rhetoric, but the bitterest pills are yet to be swallowed. > It looks > like Russia's leadership is beginning to see this connection, and take > steps to facilitate greater economic development. We always realized better than they that military capability is predicated upon economic capability; have these ideological roles now reversed to some extent ? > If our leadership > continues to take our economic position for granted, democracy will be > over-run first economically, then politically. Ah, but what is democracy ? They claim they will let workers elect their supervisors. What a concept ! > Gerry Gleason Gorbachev seems to be admitting that the effort to create the New Socialist Man has failed miserably. After three generations they still have freeloaders and slackers that exploit job security. Free-market-ish incentive structures are called for. #include Fred Baube Nat'l Science Foundation