Posted on 09/05/2010 10:12:25 AM PDT by Rashputin
It's not the output. It's the people. Our output could be the sky's the limit; but if large segments of the population are idle or do not feel as if they are contributing, it will change the nature of our population, the way we think and how we engage the world.
I would worry less about not having enough steel than I would about not having enough steel-workers, if you get my drift. I rather like people who can do things, being as my family includes railroad car-greaser, steelworkers, canal boater, stone masons, bricklayer, blacksmith, cooks, master printers, and the like. We could not rebuild the Steel now if we wanted to. When the New Jersey Transit proposed re-opening the Lackawana Cut-off for rail traffic, they said it would take 10 years. A century and a half ago, it took the Delaware Lackawana and Western Road three years to build it from scratch, including surveying the route, blasting tunnels, and filling defiles. Whatever the post-Modern Age will be called, it will not be called "industrious."
A Republic can survive only when the citizens believe they are valuable members of the society. A nation of self-governing serfs isn't going to happen. Madison said "Pure democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
(Excerpt) Read more at jerrypournelle.com ...
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