[ExI] retrainability of plebeians

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2009/5/3 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:

> ### Yeah, this happened and I was actually there - in Eastern Europe
> in the early 90's. Except it took not a few but between 40 and 70
> years for the masses to snap out of it and demand real change (as
> opposed to Obama-change).

Are you saying it would have taken this long if people had been
allowed free access to information, freedom of travel, freedom of
expression, freedom to form political parties and free elections? If
so, then communism in Eastern Europe wasn't nearly as bad as is often
made out.

> And of course once the capitalist prosperity
> arrives it takes less than 30 years for the society as a whole to
> forget where it came from. They start thinking prosperity is something
> that just happens, and a birthright, too, so of course soon taxes and
> government power start growing again. And thus the never ending cycle
> continues, the yang of wisdom, capitalism, and progress is again
> smothered by the yin of stupidity and envy.

You don't need memory or economic savy. Even with no particular
purpose in mind, levels of taxation and government services vary over
time within a state and between states. The more successful systems
will prevail, and this evolutionary process is only retarded, not
stopped, by totalitarian government, as shown by the example of
Eastern Europe.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou