News the media feels is unfit to print

About a week ago I wrote a letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The letter was critical of a column by George F. Will where he, in effect, explained how he had no idea of what the words capitalism and socialism mean. The Inquirer considered publishing my letter, but ultimately declined.

The letters that the Inquirer did publish on this topic demonstrate the clear limitations of the press in this country. One of those letters argued that there are aspects to both capitalism and socialism that are desirable.

Clearly, there are many, like Bernie Sanders, who agree with that perspective. However, for me, the rational definition of socialism is the antithesis of capitalism. Just as the capitalist system replaced feudalism, socialism is a rational way of replacing capitalism.

The pioneers of capitalism didn’t attempt to establish a more enlightened rule of kings and queens. No, they worked to establish a completely different political economic system. This is what a genuinely socialist, or workers government will do.

Below is my unpublished letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer.     

To the Editor,

George F. Will, in his column pretending to be about socialism, has his facts backwards. Will argues that socialism means, "Everyone will be nice to everyone else, through using other people's money." We can expose the clear hypocrisy of this statement with a quotation by John Locke, whose writings inspired the revolutionaries who founded this country. Locke argued that, "All wealth is the product of labor."

This means that literally all the goods and services we need and want are produced by working people. While we produce all wealth, capitalists spend time figuring out where to invest the wealth we produce. Then, they spend time trying to maximize profits on the labor of each and every worker. What are the results of this system?

Today poverty and war are as much a part of the human experience as the wind and the rain. One out of every six people in this country doesn't have enough food to eat. 80% of the world's population lives on $10 per day or less. These conditions exist while a few hundred families have more wealth than half the world's population.

Bernie Sanders and others claim that they support the idea of socialism. If you look at their proposals, at best, they would like to make capitalism more egalitarian. The problem is that the core value of capitalism is to derive profits from workers, and this will not change as long as capitalism exists. 

I believe it is useful to imagine what the world would look like if human needs were viewed as more important than profits. Our standard of living would improve radically, while we would need to spend considerably less time working a job. All this means that our problem is not the idea of socialism, but the routine functioning of the capitalist system.