Soviets Ask for Western Aid

I have read Walter Russell Mead’s article “Into the Capitalist Jungle” (Opinion, June 9) with dismay. The author gives a satanic interpretation of the origins of capitalism: the nobles throwing the peasants off the land, shipmasters capturing slaves in Africa and selling them to the West Indies, and so on. No one can deny these horrible and abominable aspects of capitalism, but the origins of capitalism do not lie in these wicked aspects.

What are the real factors? They were the following: the liberal organization of the state in England and Holland, the concept of liberal competition against the school of mercantilism and protectionism; the abolition of the principle of primogeniture in some European countries; the new technical discoveries from the power of the horse to that of the steam engine, which upset old habits; the demands for new comforts that rebuilt old cities, and finally the emphasis on the democratic feeling--the stress on individual initiative and not on inherited wealth.

The author gives a Marxist interpretation of the origins of capitalism that is a falsification of history. There is more. If one reads the history of Japan and China, nobles also forced the poor and very unfortunate peasants off the land and they enforced slavery, but they did not create a capitalist society.

ANGELO A. DE GENNARO

Los Angeles