First off, I apologize if I led anyone to believe that you suggested that. Second, yeah they have had a history of being deeply fractured but they have never been more united lately. India gives every indication of getting its act together not falling apart and this is in spite of a turbulent history that makes ours look like a Sunday brunch. They have a growing middle class. They have a govt that hasn't been overthrown since its inception. They even haven’t had a civil war. They have a growing economy when similar countries don’t. You toss off the civil war but I’d say you really have to feel some distance from your fellow countryman to kill some 600 thousand of them which is what we did.
“I do not doubt that the American culture is now in the progress of developing those kinds of fractures. The civil war seems almost a narrow quarrel among neighbors, although an intense one for sure. We seem now to be moving away from each other in profound ways...and to despise each other, which I don’t think was really the case in the civil war. I think we would have the potential of becoming an India except we won’t last for centuries more, IMO.”
No. Almost a narrow quarrel?! There was nothing narrow about it. The civil war was about a transition from an agrarian lifestyle and economy to an industrial one. Big issues were at stake and I don’t just mean slavery. Would that we could have transitioned as well as the indians are doing. And the US isn’t becoming fractured. We are less likely to fall apart as a nation now than even back in the 60s. In fact the opposite of what you suggest is what I think most threatens us. Its rank uniformity and an all powerful centralized federal government to enforce it that threatens us most.
“But as to the Robber Barron comparison, I think it is an order of magnitude different. If the RB’s had been cavorting at Newport during the great depression and if we had had modern media and communications (as the Indians do now) to put it in front of our eyes, then the comparison would be more apts.”
You are wrong. The Robber Barrons were a bunch of guys who rushed ahead of everyone else in the burgeoning industrial economy and amassed a lot of wealth and power. Who do you think they were selling to? It was an every increasing wealthier populace. Same thing is going on in India now. As for cavorting, well the Robber Barons did their fair share even during the depression though they werent called that by then. Bill Gates couldnt buy the power that the robber barons had. Forget about 100m dollar weddings. What about monopolies. What about trust busting. Interlocking directorates. What about union shops. These are the inevitable issues that come from an emerging economic power.
“As to doing something about it, no, it certainly is nothing for us to mix in. But if a mob of impoverished Indians were to behead some of those living billionaire lifestyles, it would please me.”
Wow. Since this is a conservative site and conservatism is anti-revolutionary by definition, I don’t understand how it would please you if a mob did anything let alone behead billionaires.