“the single most important thing that I learned from my years working on ‘constitutionalism’ in Eastern Europe: That 90% of the challenge is to build a culture that respects the rule of law, and that practices it. A document doesn’t build that culture. And no one has a formula — either for building it, or preserving it.

Certainly not a law professor.”

Lawrence Lessig blog

http://www.mises.org/fullstory.aspx?Id=1512

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Marx would consider present day America a “socialist paradise.” Social Security gets to keep its name, I guess.

I wonder if $300 billion in microloans to Iraqis would have made a better investment than using that much to blow stuff up there?

“How do you build, or grow, a moral infrastructure? That’s what we need to understand. Sadly — and let’s hope not tragically — we still don’t.”

But you didn’t answer Kling’s question, unless the answer is neither.

And Iraq/Islam has a lot of institutions for transactions and civil society, some of which you may not like or consider absurd(usury) but have a track record of middling success.

“How do you build, or grow, a moral infrastructure? That’s what we need to understand. Sadly — and let’s hope not tragically — we still don’t.”

But you didn’t answer Kling’s question, unless the answer is neither.

And Iraq/Islam has a lot of institutions for transactions and civil society, some of which you may not like or consider absurd(usury) but have a track record of middling success.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that Marx would consider present day America a “socialist paradise.” Social Security gets to keep its name, I guess.

I wonder if $300 billion in microloans to Iraqis would have made a better investment than using that much to blow stuff up there?