4-29-08

4-29-08—In a 6-3 vote, justices uphold a voter ID law. NYT A1 History does not end. Amidst the emergence of democratic functioning across the planet we should not forget that the oldest democracies---the United States, Great Britain, France---continue to evolve. Everything seems to indicate that the latter are transforming into oligarchical systems. . .what if democracy is merely the political superstructure of a particular cultural stage---simply mass literacy? . . Secondary education and especially higher education reintroduce the notion of inequality into the mental and ideological organization of developed societies. After a brief period of hesitation and scruples, the more highly educated wind up believing that they are truly superior. In developed countries a new class is emerging that comprises roughly 20 per cent of the population in terms of sheer numbers but controls about half of each nation’s wealth. This new class has more and more trouble putting up with the constraint of universal suffrage. [Todd, 16]

--gasoline [set] a fresh record of $3.60 a gallon nationwide on Monday. Experts expect prices above $4 a gallon this summer, and one analyst recently predicted that gasoline could reach $7 in the next four years. NYT A1 . . . overall the result is easy to predict: a regulatory pole will emerge in Eurasia, one closer to the geographic center of the world, and there will be a slowdown in the flow of goods, capital, and migration that currently nourishes the United States. The United States will then have to live like other nations, notably by reigning in its huge trade deficit, a constraint that would imply a 15 to 20 percent drop in the standard of living of the population. . . [Todd, 199]