ABSTRACT
Even a casual survey of the world’s economies today would reveal that all is not well with human economic life. The countries of western Europe are all experiencing higher rates of unemployment than they have in decades. European welfare systems—most of them lovingly constructed within a few short years after World War II—are now being threatened with destructive overhaul as public sectors are losing both their influence and their share of the national wealth. China, too, is experiencing crippling unemployment— in its case in the midst of bustling economic growth. Inflation is also occurring in that communist country for the first time since its revolution. The Chinese welfare system, its famous Iron Rice Bowl, is beginning to crumble, and in ways and for reasons that are sadly like those in the west.
