Readers React: Debt-plagued millennials have good reasons to favor socialism

To the editor: Economist Edward L. Glaeser worries about young peoples’ preference for socialism over capitalism, but as a mother of two millennials I can tell him: Millennials are not stupid.

They won’t be misled by semantics into embracing a tyranny of corrupt party elites as in the Soviet Union when that’s what they don’t want to see in this country.

And, don’t talk about idealized capitalist dreams while calling the egalitarian dreams of millennials “chimeras.” They face a world threatened by overpopulation, environmental degradation and wealth inequality, with limited natural resources where no one can succeed without the actions of many others.

Capitalism has a problem all right — it is inherently amoral. With freedom must come responsibility. If capitalists want to change minds, they’ll have to replace the slogan of “free enterprise” with “responsible enterprise” and show they mean it.

Carol Wuenschell, Arcadia

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To the editor: President Reagan is not someone I would quote in defense of capitalism. He may have been the Great Communicator, but his presidency was marked by deregulation, Wall Street greed and an upward redistribution of wealth.

There’s nothing wrong with entrepreneurship and shooting for the moon, but ultimately we are inextricably linked and responsible for each other.

Most of us will not be entrepreneurs, nor will we sit at the table of casino capitalism, the stock market. Most of us will toil away at our jobs, live for the weekend and aspire to join the middle class with a pension, Social Security and Medicare.

In its broadest sense, democratic socialism is a humane vision of society that tells us we are all in this together. Capitalism, on the other hand, says you’re on your own.

Joseph Gius, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Glaeser’s glib equation of capitalism with freedom almost turned me away, but he makes a number of very good points.

In 1920, Bertrand Russell bemoaned the fact that socialism had found its first landfall in Russia, which he saw as a poor testing ground. For a similar example in today’s world, we could equate capitalism with how it is practiced in Russia.

Doesn’t look much like freedom, does it?

Peter Poole, Temecula

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To the editor: It’s not hard to see why young folks would be drawn to socialism when, thanks to neo-liberalism, the three richest Americans have more wealth than 50% of the rest of us, and college graduates face decades of debt servitude.

Does this mean socialism is the answer? That’s hard to tell, since no socialist from Bolshevik Russia to modern-day Latin America has been free of strangulation by a worried capitalist complex.

Glasser seems to think only riches can motivate innovation. Lucky for us, that wasn’t the case with the prehistoric Bill Gateses who moved our species out of the mud.

As for our youth, it looks like our corporate-owned media have their work cut out for them.

Frank Douglas Doepke, Claremont

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