----- Original Message -----
From: "Ray Harrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2001 2:17 PM
Subject: Re: Musings on the FTAA
> The same thing that happened to China when the Imperial Navy was destroyed
> by the British for purposes of trade. Something the Colombian Cartels
> long for in their little repeat of history.
>
> REH
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2001 11:30 AM
> Subject: RE: Musings on the FTAA
>
>
> > I agree with much of Ed's analysis. I wonder though what would have
> > happened if the USSR had responded to the spending of "star wars" by
> > declaring that they would unilaterally disarm. What would the US
military
> > industrial complex have done? What would have happened to the US
economy?
> > And the stock markets?
> >
> > Of course the USSR had its own military-industrial complex and there
were
> > many more forces at work as Ed notes. But what if they hadn't tried to
> meet
> > the spending on arms, but just said, we declare unilateral disarmament?
> How
> > would things have developed?
> >
> > Arthur Cordell
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ed Weick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> > Sent: May 5, 2001 10:23 AM
> > To: Brad McCormick, Ed.D.; Magic Circ Op Rep Ens
> > Cc: futurework
> > Subject: Re: Musings on the FTAA
> >
> >
> > > Magic Circ Op Rep Ens wrote:
> > > [snip]
> > > > I think the only reason that the Soviet Empire collapsed was that
they
> > got
> > > > spent under the table.
> >
> > Brad wrote:
> > >
> > > This seems to me to be one key aspect of Anglo-American anti-Communism
> > that
> > > was so cleverly implemented (or was it truly an unwitting effect of
> > > the agent-less agency of The Invisible Hand, thus showing, yet again,
> > > that, as Hegel wrote: The history of the world is the world history
> > > of Reason???) -- this capitalist strategy was so cleverly implemented
> > > that nobody seemed to notice it at the time, neither the Soviets
> > > and their apologists, nor the "revisionists" here in The West (e.g.,
> > > D.F. Fleming). Or maybe the Soviets *did* realize it, but they also
> > > realized that there would be no useful point served by saying they
did?
> > >
> >
> > I don't think it quite happened this way. My understanding is that the
> > military-industrial sector of the Soviet economy, including the space
> > program, was relatively efficient even if compared with the advanced
> > economies of the west. It was the rest of the economy which wasn't
> working,
> > and which would likely have ground down even if there had not been a
cold
> > war. The absence of a market based price mechanism meant that the terms
> of
> > exchange for almost all goods and services had to be determined by a
huge
> > central planning bureaucracy. The bigger and more complex the economy
> > became, the bigger and more complex this bureaucracy had to be. I
believe
> > that much of the very rapid growth of Moscow from, say, about 1920 to
> 1980,
> > could be accounted for by the growth of this bureaucracy. Moreover,
> except
> > in the military and aerospace sectors, there was little concept of, or
> > incentive toward, innovation and efficiency. If a tractor or oil
drilling
> > rig broke down because of old age, the bureaucracy simply replaced it
with
> > another one of identical design, though only after a considerable delay
> > while all of the transactions within the various planning bureaus were
> > completed.
> >
> > The emphasis on heavy industry was another factor. Generations of
people
> > had to put up with scarce and shoddy goods, including housing, simply
> > because so few resources were being put into building up the consumer
> > sector. People were forever being told to wait, things would be better
> > tomorrow, but they eventually got tired of it. Agriculture, operating as
> > huge state farms, was notoriously inefficient, meaning that even
> foodstuffs
> > were scarce. When I was in Moscow a few years ago, very little of the
> > clothing available in the huge GUM department store was Russian made.
> > Almost all of the T-shirts or sweatshirts had New York Yankee or LA
> Dodgers
> > logos on them. I looked in vain for a T-shirt with MOCKBA on it for my
> > daughter.
> >
> > The root cause of the Soviet collapse was ideology, the belief that a
> fully
> > planned, non-market economy could meet the needs of a complex and
growing
> > society. The Soviet Union was simply too complicated, too forced and
> > ultimately unworkable. The collapse might have come much sooner if the
> > Soviet Union had not had its eastern European satellites to prop it up.
> >
> > For those of you who might be concerned about the "data" I have in
support
> > of the foregoing, I have quite a number of books on the Soviet Union on
my
> > shelves, and I have read them. I also undertook an intensive one month
> > study tour in Russia in 1995 at a university level institution. Notes
> from
> > that tour can be found at: http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636/moscow.htm
> >
> > Ed Weick
> >
>
