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AND!!!!
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In addition to the stupidity of the article (LINK), he says this with a straight face.
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Other countries lacked this cultural brew. Worse, life was marked by fear, by arbitrary power, by suspicion that people are watching you, by distrust. People raised in this atmosphere of distrust have trouble forming companies and associations. They are more likely to be driven by a grab-what-you-can logic — a culture of corruption and appropriation. They are more likely to hunker down and become risk averse.
Many of the ailing countries are marked by distant power relationships. Those with power — even in an office or neighborhood — are aloof and domineering. Those without power hanker for security at all costs. They’re nostalgic for the imagined stability of communism. When everything seems arbitrary and crooked, people tolerate strongman rule.
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Now, I don't know about you - but this seems, in many ways, the America we are heading for. .
"Life marked by fear".. did you see the run up to the election with stories about ISIS (who is 10,000 miles away without a plane or boat) getting ready to 'attack' us? How about 'Ebola" - or as the right called it in the run up to the election, Obama's power grab. .
Talk to the folks in Furgeson, or Trevor Martin's family - of the Staten Island may chokeholded to death about "arbitrary power".
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We aren't marked by "suspicion that people are watching you..." our government actually does this all the time (which we know from court documents, since the government won't tell us this).
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"Those with power - even in an office or neighborhood - are aloof and domineering."
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My only argument here would be that the comment "They're nostalgic for the imagined stability of communism" should be changed to "Americans are nostalgic for the idea of true democracy."