I have friends and neighbors--nice, caring, responsible people--who openly look forward to the chance to travel to Cuba now that relations are thawing, because it's so unspoiled, and there are all those charming cars from the 1950s. The New York Times sounds the warning bell, however: as Cuba opens its doors ever so slightly, there already are appearing signs of rising inequality.
The fashion lately has been to decry inequality because it supposedly inhibits growth. At the same time, if Cuba is any guide, the concern is that growth spurs inequality. Assuming equality is the most important goal, what if the only solution is to prevent growth? What if both inequality and equality could with equal (if minimal) rationality be said to inhibit growth, and in fact both are completely irrelevant to prosperity? That's assuming we should actually care about prosperity, considering how evil materialism is. My head is spinning lately.
1 comment:
Now you just look here, little lady. Stop trying to wrap your adorable little head around our highly nuanced arguments and just accept that we are a heck of a lot smarter than the Average Bear.
You know - Smart Power and all that.
If you insist on trying to make 2 and 2 add up to 4, you're going to do yourself an injury! Everyone knows that according to the new math, 2 + 2 equals whatever we're claiming it does this week.
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