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C00002 00002	.cb ENERGY AND POLITICS
C00004 00003	PLURALISM
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.cb ENERGY AND POLITICS


	Many propositions that used to be taken for granted and not
discussed are now "questioned".  Unfortunately this "questioning"
amounts to taking their falsity for granted.  In fact, today, when
someone speaks of "questioning" a proposition, he often means
assuming it false without any obligation to present convincing reasons.
Anyway here are some propositions that used to be taken for granted
for which I wish to present explicit arguments.

	1. Productivity, in the sense of output per man hour, is the
most important determinant of prosperity.  A country with low output
per man-hour will be poorer than a country with high output per man-hour.

	2. Increased prosperity is important for human welfare even
in the most prosperous countries.

	3. The amount of unemployment depends primarily on the
functioning of the economic system.  Technological advance, even
when its primary effect is to increase efficiency, doesn't produce
unemployment.  This is because the people can still enjoy even more
material goods than the richest economy so far has produced.
PLURALISM

	In the present state of politics, a world government is
undesirable.  Moreover, within a country like the United States
of America, it is important that subdivisions like states and
cities have as much independence as possible.  Once upon a time,
Southern politicians made much of "states' rights", but they were
beaten, because their main use of states' rights was to keep
the blacks in subjection.  I now want to contend that if states'
rights don't exist, they should be made to exist.

	There are two reasons for political pluralism.  The first
is to provide the possibility of experiment.  Experiment in politics
is like experiment in medicine, only more so.  Each experiment on
a human or a society has to be intended to do the patient some
good.  In politics, there is the further requirement that the patient
itself must think the experiment will do good.

	The second is that many cultures today will accept any
degree of parasitism and dependency that circumstances permit.
Some are even predatory.  As long as this is true but denied by
the cultures themselves, the world is better off if every country
has to rely on itself.  Parasitism with a country is bad enough.