‘Should we go from Karl Marx to Donald Trump in one Great Leap Forward?’ asked Professor Caryl Rivers , in 1990.

Back on 20 March 1990, Professor Caryl Rivers, writing in the Boston Globe, suggested that people in Eastern Europe should be wary of going overboard on unrestricted capitalism following the fall of the Berlin wall. They should, Rivers says, ask themselves: “Do we really want to become like the US? Do we want homeless people roaming the streets, drug shootouts, old people sent home sicker and quicker, social services slashed to the bone, a society where the rapacious rich get immensely richer while the ranks of the poor quietly swell? Do we want corporate raiders and yuppies and golden parachutes? Should we go from Karl Marx to Donald Trump in one Great Leap Forward?”

Talk about seeing into the future.

Ian Bullock

Brighton

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