[marginalia_nu]

I don't know if it's true but I've seen it argued that shortsightedness of western capitalism was kept in check by the five year planning of the eastern bloc, and when the wall fell, that check was essentially removed and most of our problems today is a result of that.

As I said, I don't know if it's true, but it's certainly an interesting notion. Maybe it's true at least in the sense that during the cold war, the west couldn't really afford to rest on its laurels. Even the most dysfunctional market had to be compelled to beat the Soviet null hypothesis as a matter of survival for the way of life.