Keith, I'm going to let you have the last word on this one. I think we've beaten it to death, and I don't want us to do that to each other, should we ever meet.
I do think we've found something we can agree on. You said: "You see governments coming into play as necessary (and benign!) agents in hard times. I see governments as being places to which ambitious people are constantly attracted. These people may be anywhere on a scale between being reasonably well-disposed and crooks/nasty people of the deepest hue -- but nevertheless, all of them like power and will not give it up willingly. In my industrial life I knew scores and scores of men who were offered promotion (sometimes with more earnings, sometimes not, but always with more power, of course). I never knew a single person who ever turned promotion down." The only point I would add is that I've seen the will to power by whatever means operate in the private as well as the public sector. One company I worked for was organized along mafia lines, with the Chairman of the Board having his hierarchy of people and power down through the ranks and the CEO having his. There were some truly monumental battles all the way down to the levels at which people simply kept their heads down to dodge the bullets. It was exhilarating, but it was not much fun! Ed Ed Weick 577 Melbourne Ave. Ottawa, ON, K2A 1W7 Canada Phone (613) 728 4630 Fax (613) 728 9382
