Development of Democracies

* Your recent series about democracy (Feb. 16-19) casts light on the tremendous difficulties involved in implementing democratic policies and establishing democratic institutions in parts of the world that are extraneous to the very concept. Your economic development vs. democratic growth paradigm was very accurate since democracy can never flourish in an environment of extreme want.

There is an item to which I feel that you gave insufficient attention: The lack of a sound historical tradition in the societies that you analyzed that could provide a framework for sustaining democracy. Such omission could be explained by our natural American impatience with history, but the importance of such an item can be easily interpreted from realizing that the three democracy documents that you gave, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, originated in the West and nowhere else.

RAMON OCEGUERA

San Diego

* Simply put, all governments of every shape and form will perish if wealth is not equitably distributed. That is the key, and not the form of government. Russia went from a monarchy to state ownership, then privatized to the former bureaucrats in power. No change. The people were ignored. Capitalism will suffer the same fate if the people are also ignored--regardless of the country!

So, let’s wake up! I didn’t need to see a sad picture of a beggar and a rich Russian woman (Feb. 16). I see that here in the U.S.

CHARLES F. DAY

Laguna Niguel