Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:01:40 -0500 (EST)
From: Jim Jaszewski <jjazz-AT-freenet.hamilton.on.ca>
Subject: Re: 100 Years of (Mis)Understanding



On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 ROSSERJB-AT-vax1.acs.jmu.edu wrote:

>     Regarding Finland, starting from a position about 
> equal to that in northeastern Russia in 1917, today it
> has a much lower poverty rate than any state that was a
> part of Russia or part of the CMEA.

	You seem to be forgetting that a BIG part of Suomi's economy was 
acting as go-between between the West and the East -- how about comparing 
other `border states?  Capitalist Iran? Or, say, India?

	You may be an economist, but as a political economist you've got
your work cut out for you... (what's Suomi's economy like now that the 
USSR is defunct?)


> It also has had political democracy without any political prisoners at
> least in the last 50 years. 

	Your `analysis' seems exceedingly superficial to me.  Besides the
possibility that you are just plain wrong, you seem to accept the
bourgeois axiom that democracy is as simple as the holding of elections... 


> That Kekkonen was a KGB agent is neither here nor there.

	(Not to be confused with Ketonen, our neighbor on Dog Lake with the
homey little sauna that was a center of social life and beer drinking...)

	I agree.  So what that Brian Mulroney was a Yankee stooge over
here?  Speaking of Fidel -- how many years was Kekkonen in power (all
`democratic', I'm sure)? 


  I note that the status of women,
> a very significant item in my eyes, is among the very highest
> in the world.  Sounds pretty good to me.  Which former Soviet-
> affiliated or part of tsarist Russia has done better, Jim?  Are
> workers better off in any of these states, or any state in the
> world that is not a Scandinavian social democracy?  Do you want
> specific numbers?  They can be easily provided for all of the above.
>      Gee, I forgot, Finland has not had ICBMs, space satellites,
> nuclear weapons, etc.  How silly of me.

	Again I say that your analysis is exceedingly superficial and does
not take into account Suomi's place (and all of Western Europe's FTM) in
the international division of labor.  It's so bourgeois, in fact, that, as
I did with `Utica', I just have to ask you:  are you even a marxist? 



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