I dunno - maybe I'm wrong, but I got the vibe from all the reports of the Arab Spring that it was largely built on social media for coordination. Well, the Arab

I dunno - maybe I'm wrong, but I got the vibe from all the reports of the Arab Spring that it was largely built on social media for coordination. Well, the Arab Spring was a precursor to ISIS. Throw in de-Baathification policies in Iraq, and... Slavery, colonialism and to an extent militarism are hallmarks of mercantilism. And the Military Industrial Complex in the US was because people like Eisenhower saw the huge drawdowns after WWI and because now the US was left as some sort of world leader. I don't think this was mostly sought - it happened to us more than it was consciously chosen. And we were terrible at it, and some say we still are. But we had our moments. I won't pooh-pooh Nordic "socialism". It works for them. The version Canada has seems reasonable as well.These places are poorer than the US as things are measured, but it's not like they're awful places to live. What I'm doing is to an extent a "no true Scotsman" mess, but if you read Adam Smith, that's what you're left with. It's just that the ethical challenges of being transparent are difficult. People regress to wanting something more akin to Mercantilism, power by fiat.