X-Loop: openpgp.net
From: Jim Choate <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Yeah, thriving economies that only a handful of elite got to benefit from
> while the rest of the population were pretty much on bread and water. You
> really should study the fall of the Ottoman Empire a tad more closely (or
> at least quit leaving out the parts that don't fit your pet theory).
Er... what part of "feudalism is a form of socialism" you don't understand?
Furthermore, that happened more than a century ago. Between the two World
Wars, Romania was one of the richest countries in Eastern Europe; we had a
gold coin, we exported grains to the whole Europe, oil to the US, and most
people owned land. Of course we had an upper class - there will always be an
upper class, whether you have dictatorship or anarchy (although in the
latest it will probably be made up of smart people instead of politicians) -
but the situation was far from "bread and water". [My grandma was born in
1901, so I know what I'm talking about; heck, she said that things were
better even during the Nazi "collaboration" here - at least they had nothing
against the population, they just wanted the oil.]
Mark
