Today's (Sat, 12 Sep 98) NewYork Times has
a front page articla about Russia's new Prime
Minister, Primakov:
"At Parliament [Primakov] spoke of
bolstering Russian industry... and of
giving the Government a larger role
in regulating the economy. And he invoked
Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal as an
example of the measured use of government
intervention to rescue a country from
economic depression....
"Indeed, it did not occur to
anyone to condemn the United States,
for example, when Roosevelt introduced some
elements of state regulation in the
economy after the Great Depression. So
should we copy the wild capitalism that
existed in the past, or should we
use the experience accumulated by
humankind?"
I certainly never thought I would see the day
when the head of the Russian government would
be reduced to pleading for the right to
use a little coordinated social intelligence
to guide the deployment of the means of
production, and to do this in the name of the
man whose policies arguably *prevented*
worker revolution in the world's premier
capitalist state.
But, of course, Primakov got one thing
wrong: I understand that, at the time,
some *Americans* thought Roosevelt was
some kind of traitor (fascist or other).
\brad mccormick
--
Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but
Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world.
Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED]
914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA
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