The bottom line on needs and wants

Re “Overselling capitalism,” Opinion, April 4

Benjamin R. Barber’s essay about what is wrong with capitalism today was so amusing I had to respond. Some reasons why capitalism’s “proper end” will never be limited to the “satisfaction of real human needs” are because many countries where capitalism is needed to provide the real human needs are governed by corrupt, cruel and incompetent leaders, and because capitalism succeeds by creating markets that bring a profit, not by producing something that no one wants, let alone refusing to produce a product just because some expert deems it unnecessary to meet our basic needs.

Capitalism equals evolution, and evolution is not only real, it is unstoppable. The world is no more likely to abandon free markets than it is likely to voluntarily return to wood fires for heating and horses for transportation. I would rather take my chances on capitalism “consuming itself” than the alternative solution, which can be seen in all its glory in countries such as North Korea.

CRAIG HILDRETH

St. Louis, Mo.

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On my desk is a quote by Lao-Tzu, the father of Taoism: “To know when you have enough is to be rich beyond measure.” Barber’s insightful and morally compelling article is one I hope is reprinted in many publications and websites, used as material for sermons, discussed in high school, college and university classes and pondered over in legislatures and boardrooms. In a city pulsating with consumer frenzy, can we not pause and reflect on the meaning of “enough” and its attendant moral, religious and political implications?

MARILYN T. SCHAFER

Los Angeles

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Barber believes that producing too many goods is somehow harmful to the world’s needy, and he states that “capitalism requires us to ‘need’ all that it produces in order to survive.”

On a continuing basis, significant segments of a capitalistic economy do not survive. Companies whose products or services do not satisfy consumer wants and needs go out of business. It is largely because of the high mortality rate of businesses that market capitalism has provided the world with a quality of life that even the royalty and aristocracy of the 18th century could not have imagined.

When a company goes out of business, its employees’ talents, physical property and capital equipment do not disappear; they become the assets of new owners, entrepreneurs and managers who, at least for a while, can put them to better and more productive use than could the incompetents they replaced.

Contrast that with Barber’s University of Maryland, a large institution that cannot possibly go out of business and whose “product” must be paid for by everyone in the state -- the taxpayers, whether they use the product or not.

CHARLES E. SCHARF

Corona

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Barber confuses “needs” and “wants” when he writes that capitalism “busies itself manufacturing needs for the wealthy while ignoring the wants of the truly needy.” Surely he means to contrast the “wants” or “desires” of the wealthy with the survival-based “needs” of the poor.

AJAY SINGH

Los Angeles