johnny9fingers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
johnny9fingers) wrote2007-02-10 12:24 pm
johnny9fingers) wrote2007-02-10 12:24 pm
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The British micro-culture has been accused of being bloody minded. Of course we're bloody minded. We were the first Nation you can think of who voluntarily gave up an empire, (because in argument, it conflicted with our idea of justice). And actually, America pointed this out to us, and re-inforced the lesson with Suez. (The French, Potugeuse, Belgians, and Dutch, all dismantled their empires soon after.)
The US then became the west's leader against the 'communist menace' - paranoia on both sides but...You guys held on, with minor nastinesses in Central and South America and what had been French Indo-China. The Russians had Czechoslovakia and Hungary and Korea and Vietnam and Gulags and repression.
We all did what we had to do, as we saw it.
Soviet Russia fell when it did because of economics - the inability for a managed economy to compete with an economy undergoing constant evolution through the mutagenic pressure of market forces, if you'll excuse me for teasing you with a Dawkins like phrase.
To reverse Von Clauswitz's phrase, Economics is war by other means.
China
India
In order, the next great economic powers.
How are we doing so far? How do we hold what wealth we have?
How do we stop vaguely criminal merchant adventurers squandering what we've built up.
Britain bankrupted itself fighting WWI and II, then took forty years to reclaim a position on the economic league table, but one no longer of dominance. Conditions had changed and we no longer had a captive market, as our empire was gone.
The industries that built America are floundering, with the exception of the weapons industries and industries with goverment contracts. The new industries flourish, but with maths teaching in both the US and UK, the IT sector will become dominated by Chinese and Indian folk, who are (en masse) brighter than us anyway.
We should be more careful of our resources, or act to renew them. Perhaps even spend more money on education.
The US then became the west's leader against the 'communist menace' - paranoia on both sides but...You guys held on, with minor nastinesses in Central and South America and what had been French Indo-China. The Russians had Czechoslovakia and Hungary and Korea and Vietnam and Gulags and repression.
We all did what we had to do, as we saw it.
Soviet Russia fell when it did because of economics - the inability for a managed economy to compete with an economy undergoing constant evolution through the mutagenic pressure of market forces, if you'll excuse me for teasing you with a Dawkins like phrase.
To reverse Von Clauswitz's phrase, Economics is war by other means.
China
India
In order, the next great economic powers.
How are we doing so far? How do we hold what wealth we have?
How do we stop vaguely criminal merchant adventurers squandering what we've built up.
Britain bankrupted itself fighting WWI and II, then took forty years to reclaim a position on the economic league table, but one no longer of dominance. Conditions had changed and we no longer had a captive market, as our empire was gone.
The industries that built America are floundering, with the exception of the weapons industries and industries with goverment contracts. The new industries flourish, but with maths teaching in both the US and UK, the IT sector will become dominated by Chinese and Indian folk, who are (en masse) brighter than us anyway.
We should be more careful of our resources, or act to renew them. Perhaps even spend more money on education.