Thanks for the recommendation on the book Ed. I'll look it up. Always enjoy your "take" on things.
REH From: futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca [mailto:futurework-boun...@lists.uwaterloo.ca] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2013 11:17 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: Re: [Futurework] important talk Don't know quite how to respond to this. The guy talking about China is confident and impressive, and undoubtedly China is now on a steady rise while the US and Europe are flipping this way and that. But then every country that has espoused a new way of seeing itself politically and of organizing itself into something more ideal than it was has exuded confidence and has had its clever people say good things about it. I'm reading a very interesting if somewhat depressing book right now. It's "Bloodlands" by Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale. The book deals with the political and economic growth of Nazi Germany and the nascent Soviet Union and how the ideology of each state, and the conflict between them, affected the people that lived between their respective boundaries - the Poles, the Ukrainians, the Lithuanians, the people of the Balkans, etc. The conflict, based both on ideology and the egotism of leaders like Hitler and Stalin and their upper echelon followers, led to mass starvation, the shipment of large numbers of people to remote prison camps (the gulag), the creation of Jewish ghettos, and simply shooting large numbers of people on the spot (among them my Polish grandfather). Yes, China is growing and becoming a strong and wealthy country. But one does have to recall events such as Mao's cultural revolution and the continuing movement of large numbers of people from the countryside to the toxic megacities that account for much of the country's growth. And yes, China is well organized, but then so were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. For a country to be well organized doesn't mean that its people are happy with the planning and organizing they are being subjected to. One hears snippets here about how unhappy some people are. One even hears about rebellion here and there. So it's nice to hear the guy talk about how good things are getting in China. But it makes you wonder whether they really are that good. Ed _____ From: Ray Harrell <mc...@nyc.rr.com> To: 'Steve Kurtz' <kur...@ncf.ca>; "RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION" <futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca> Sent: Tuesday, July 16, 2013 7:04:11 PM Subject: Re: [Futurework] important talk I've watched this three times and thought a lot about it. First of all, "don't fool with us, we have our culture we love authority and always have. We are happy here." (I remember those Soviets visiting our school and talking Soviet Agriculture and how wonderful it was and how they would soon not need to buy our wheat. Didn't happen. Although they did do a lot of wonderful educational things, it was a mixed bag as Ed points out every so often. Second: Chaos outside of an election is the best form of flexibility as shown by the wild and destructive swings from Mao to the present. He spoke of our hubris but this definition of flexible went beyond hubris and into the absurd. Jihad maybe? Or Kublai black banner foreign policy when he ran low on funds. Except the Spirits of the Sea wouldn't cooperate and destroyed that "flexibile" approach. Much as they did to the Spanish Armada. Third: Once they've caught us then they have to replace our creativity with their theft of ideas. I don't see new work coming out of China although the science in space and stem cells escapes the current nihilism of American business in relation to the two. There is lots of amazing technique and virtuosity but the core that creates an option to the problems at hand? There's always the Three Rivers Dam. As for culture? Yes, they have culture in spades and a long history of creativity within the context of authority. The question is whether once you have authority and discipline, what happens next? Today they are trying on Western econo-idolatry. The religion of money. How long before they discover the hollow core of that? There's still Adam Smith's first masterpiece. They are however a long way away from the concept of consensus that brings everyone along and makes government struggle to NOT follow the easy way. Ultimately this young man reminded me of the Soviet people sent out to push their system and the counterpart in Radio America and those lies. It's all a story and each person should be careful. It's a mine field. REH From: Steve Kurtz [mailto:kur...@ncf.ca] Sent: Sunday, July 14, 2013 4:01 PM To: Mike Hollinshead; Ray Evans Harrell; Keith Hudson; ROY MADRON; Kenn von Kaufmann; Tony Judge Subject: important talk The guy is excellent. Worth the 20 minutes. I prefer meritocracy, but can't speak to its reality there. http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_x_li_a_tale_of_two_political_systems.html _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list Futurework@lists.uwaterloo.ca https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
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