America needs ethically grounded capitalism

To The Eagle:

Karen Lane’s histrionic “anti socialism” themed letter in the March 21st edition milked every panicky right wing conservative trope in existence since the 1940's as well as a few bogus new ones such as undocumented illegals qualifying for Social Security.

Medicare, Social Security, any federally funded efforts such as Rural Electrification and school nutrition programs, farm price supports, bank deposit insurance, labor union organizing, to name but a few, have at their inception been decried as deadly forms of creeping socialism.

Wouldn’t it be nice if conservative Republicans stopped using “socialism” as a political scare word every time the liberal progressive opposition suggests a way to initiate some public action for the public good.

Liberals like Bernie Sanders, and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are by self definition Social Democrats, not Democratic Socialists. They propose progressive social programs to make health care, education, nutrition, housing and employment more available and affordable to our citizens through a remodeled social democratic republic.

This can only be done in partnership with American capitalism and its great wealth building industries, despite its amoral market practices and the feckless greed that consumes its industrialists for better or worse. I think that Social Democrats are striving for “better” despite stumbling around the lexicon of “socialism.” A better way of more efficiently sharing the wealth of this country is their driving ethic.

That is not a code phrase for “wealth redistribution.” It is a bald faced acknowledgment that the experts at redistributing this nation’s wealth, our Internal Revenue Service, need to be the hammer that forges a new more socially responsible, more ethically grounded template for American capitalism. Taking another go at a more equitable tax structure and some creative social engineering is going to be required.

Trying to achieve income equality and social justice through ideologically pure socialism as described by Ms. Lane would never work in this country, as it hasn’t in many others. A more compassionate hybrid breed of capitalism allied with a more socially conscious and ethically operated government would do so.

JB Bouchard

Puget Island