Social Security and the Common Good

Re “Privatizing Social Security: ‘Me’ Over ‘We,’ ” Commentary, Jan. 27: Benjamin R. Barber writes that personal choice does nothing for the common good. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to have any part of his social contract. What constitutes the common good if not each person free to make his own choices? Don’t we enjoy certain inalienable rights and doesn’t our government exist to protect those rights? I don’t think we should replace the ideas that should always unite us with a Barberian social contract of a government that forces us to make sacrifices.

Bill Decker

San Diego

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If there are changes that must be made in the Social Security system, it would be best that they be acted upon during the term of a Democratic president and/or Congress. Only then can the working people of America feel assured that the word “security” remains the focal point and basis in and for the Social Security Act as envisioned and put into law by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1935.

William P. Mouzis

Lake Balboa

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Barber’s piece was so eloquently argued. The common good is quickly disappearing under this administration’s mean-spirited, greedy, narrow-minded schemes. But the folly of this plan may awaken the common ties of the American people to ultimately reject it.

Vicki Fleming

San Diego

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Barber argues that taking money from people in order to return it to them in their old age is very democratic. It has the flavor of totalitarianism to me. Allowing people to keep their money and plan their finances seems more democratic.

Bob Spencer

Santa Monica

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I believe the issues outlined in Barber’s commentary are far more to the point than even the fact that there is no Social Security “crisis.” It is actually analogous to school prayer. Anyone at any time can pray, in school, before school or after school. People can save for their retirement, currently, any way they wish, at any level of risk (horse racing to government bonds). Obviously, thanks to the benefits of compound interest, the earlier one starts saving, and invests prudently, the higher the potential to be better off later in life.

Currently most do not save enough. Why would this change under a privatization plan? Or is this simply a smoke screen to get more people into the stock market, to benefit stockbrokers, accountants and fly-by-night investment schemes?

Michael W. Frishberg

West Hollywood