In the feudal order, there were big differences in wealth. The folks with the money supported the guards and the common fortress, and were major contributors to the spiritual, intellectual, and economic institutions that benefited everybody. And the differences were limited: a deluxe privy is still a privy, a deluxe horse is still a horse.
It's not clear that, in the long term, this was a worse way of providing for the general welfare than a centralized democratic or representative government, which is always liable to be hijacked by some very selfish faction.
In the world order, several lucky breaks have given the United States immense wealth and power. That is by no means fair. But the U. S. could aspire to a role that would have the kind of justice that the feudal arrangement had: we build institutions that are of use to the world at large, and we concentrate resources for times of crisis.
Why can't this country go all out for tsunami relief and reconstruction? It would be more fun than most of what people do in jobs -- and more satisfying to tell the grandchildren about later on. Such involvement would buy us tremendous good will. And, maybe most important, a massive effort of that kind would give the United States a viable place in the world, an understandable and respectable role: not the world's police officer, but the world's coast guard, the world's emergency medical technician, the world's firefighter. What have we got otherwise? National aspirations defined by the bundle of department store ads in the Sunday papers and the dubiously twisty ladders of advancement at the Acme Box Company. Come on, folks. We can do better than that.
Posted by shea0017 at January 2, 2005 6:34 PM