Nicaragua Family

Congratulations to Richard Boudreaux for such an objective portrayal of the response to the revolution in Nicaragua within a middle-class family, and thanks to you for printing it on the front page (“A Family’s Decade of Sandinismo,” July 18). No leftist illusions of Utopia, no rightist illusions of the Evil Empire.

The tension between idealism (the mother of the family) and a desire for more rapid economic growth (the father) is the essence of socialist societies throughout the world. The idealists shun forms of economic development that engender inequality and exploitation, while those seeking more rapid growth fear that the policies of social protection doom growth rates to minuscule or negative levels.

However, it is just such experiments, where idealism is not dead, that deserve support from us. Oddly, we too are struggling with the same dilemma: schools versus tax breaks for the rich, nutrition programs for pregnant women versus the Stealth bomber. We know how to produce material wealth, but we are a bit lacking in idealism; they know how to produce idealism but they are lacking in economic infrastructure.

It seems to me that the time has come for Americans to look afresh at Nicaragua; it is time to put aside ideological blinders and learn from each other, to cooperate in mutual reconstruction. The time for killing Nicaraguans and strangling their economy has passed.

Boudreaux’s article is the kind of non-ideological journalism that will enable us to move in that direction.

JIM DWYER

Monrovia