Steven Weller wrote:

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Perry E. Metzger wrote:

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Yes, we could be a workers paradise like one of those lovely European countries with double digit unemployment and all. Too bad we didn't go in for democratic socialism while we could have, eh?

Perry, hate to burst your bubble but unemployment in the UK _trippled_ in the first eighteen months of rule by that great socialist Margret ^^^^^^^^^ Thatcher. One third of UK manufaturing industry went bankrupt in the only large scale application of Freedman's ideas.

I think she was a little bit Tory. Conservative, maybe? Right wing? Funded by industry? On kissing terms with Reagan? Socialist, no. Or was this an attempt by Doctor Sarcasm at wit?

Its difficult to know what the US definition of "socialism" is. Particularly on Cypherpunks. I would consider it reasonable to call Thatcher a statist and authoratarian which many on the list consider to be the definition of socialism.

Actually the UK is now way ahead of the rest of Europe in terms of deregulation, low labor costs, efficient manufacturing, etc. Germany and France are now up the familiar creek because of their too-socialist policies. But there are those who say that Thatcher's slash and burn approach was appalling.

I would prefer to have the ecconomic figures for any European country over those of the UK. At the start of the Conservative rule the UK was the second biggest ecconomy. Today we have just been overtaken by Spain. Italy and France overtook long ago. With the exception of the UK the politics in Europe are much more left wing than those of the states. Excluding Major there is no European head of government to the right of Clinton. Its not really a case of "too socialist" as the natural rotation of power amongst the parties. Phill