The newest issue of the IEEE Spectrum (IEEE = Institute for Electronic and Electrical Engineers) has an
interesting article about the technological revolution in China. One item caught my eye:
True, the Communist Party still calls all the shots worth calling, whether through edicts of the central government or decisions made by party leaders at the regional or local level. But it is hard to imagine under what circumstances China's increasingly technocratic leadership would attempt to turn back the economic clock. Indeed, for the first time in the history of communist China, none of the nine members of the Communist Party's ruling Politburo is a career ideologue or a soldier, historically the two bastions of conservative communism. All, in fact, are engineers by training [see sidebar, "In China, Engineers Rule"]. It is probably safe to say that the era of personality cults--at least communist ones--has passed.
I thought, how different this is than this country. Now I realize that the only two presidents that we have had that were scientists or engineers (actually both engineers) were Hoover and Carter -- neither of whom did a great job as president (even though Carter was much better), but maybe we need a little more of this "reality based" view of the world by the people in power.
Victor