Friday, October 26, 2012

The Failure of the Modern State

Against the backdrop of the American elections, and the broader backdrop of Eurzone chaos and American sluggish recovery, the Economist and Walther Russell Mead each offer interesting thoughts on the failure of governments to deal with the economc realities and social failures of the age. Both thesis are actually similar: neither politcal left nor political right has realistic suggestions on how to fix things, though their criticism of the policies of the left are marginally harsher. It should be the task of government to put in place polices which improve the lives of citizens, but governments aren't doing that, nor do they seem poised to do so anytime soon.

The Economist article leads, by the way, to a long multi-sectioned report, which is also recommended reading.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In America, the Democrat JFK broke US Steel, the Democrats Pat Moynihan and Nader's Raiders and the UAW broke Detroit, the Democrats turned the industrial Midwest into the Rustbelt, the Democrats broke aerospace, the Democrats broke our light plane industry, the Democrats broke Bell Labs, the Democrat Dennis Kucinich made his bones bankrupting Cleveland and has now led the DNC to bankrupt most state and city governments, the Democrat Frances Piven bankrupted New York, the Democrats- well, I'm not a Democrat.

Republicans broke the housing bubble. If they'd been in office more, they'd have broke more? Maybe.

'Left' or 'Right' are irrelevant at this level of corrupt fecklessness.

Maybe Israel has a smart, honest government? Or is Netanyahu really in charge?

Bruce