STUPIDITY WILL OUT

Evenings in the Eastern Bloc ports, where I attended vessels, in the 1980s, usually meant lively political discussions while consuming rather large amounts of wine and spirits.  It was here that I devloped a response in the matter of explaining the difference between the economic systems of the East and West.  I started out with a quote that I believed had been attributed to Charles DeGaulle to the effect that while God had chosen to limit the intelligence of mankind, He had put no boundaries on its stupidity. "In a command economy," I explained, "all of the stupidity is concentrated in  central spot, whereas, in a market economy, the stupidity is dispersed.  Any illusion that one system is superior to the other will be short-lived because, in the end, stupidity will out"