Op-ed: Explaining capitalism versus socialism — the whole picture
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Here are some comments on the article in the Aug. 2 News and Sentinel that denigrated socialism. Stossel and his sources extol the ideal form of capitalism. He cites three examples of people creating businesses that made life better for Americans. He failed to mention Mr. Pullman, who revolutionized rail travel, yet mistreated his workers, cutting their wages and keeping high prices at the company store during a recession.
This led to the Haymarket labor riots. Capitalists in these and other examples made fortunes; some of which at career's end made charitable contributions -- Parkersburg's Carnegie Library.
Why not share some of their largess with their workers? Henry Ford after he got started paid his workers an above average wage. His hope was that would allow them to buy his automobiles. My favorite example of a capitalist is Tesla, a Slovenian immigrant, who revolutionized the electrical grid with alternating current technology. It started here and is now the world standard. He made Mr. Westinghouse very wealthy, and died with little wealth.
A letter writer and his source don't understand the difference between communism and socialism. Existing communist countries have authoritarian governments and the state owns everything. Pure socialist countries are democracies where there is a combination of state-owned and private property.
The writer fails to recognize there are gradations between capitalism and pure socialism. England has had socialized medicine since 1946, and they are nationalizing parts of their steel industry due to unfair foreign competition. Nordic countries with democratic governments have free health care, education and lifetime retirement. Forty percent income taxes pay for this. Ten percent of the people hold 65% of national wealth. The value for USA is far worse. Republicans say that high taxes on the wealthy stifle economic growth. Facts contradict it. Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill, which gave 80% of the tax breaks for wealthy people like myself, failed to build 1000+ factories with the attendant construction and manufacturing jobs to make up for lost taxes in 2016-20.
Trickle-down economics does not work. Workers need to temper expectations because buying American to protect jobs will be more expensive.
The writer spreads fear that once you start down the road to socialism, the country will slip into communism. That has not happened with England and the Nordic countries because they have strong democracies. When the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991, Russia had a fledgling democracy for seven years. Then Putin took over and it quickly morphed into a kleptocracy. Trump is six steps behind Mussolini in the fascist play book. We need to stop him from going further.
Democrats and Independents like myself need to set aside differences in various degrees of socialism and support candidates that will change congressional control.
This will thwart Trump's efforts to make USA like the Russian kleptocracy, and pass laws that would make life in USA more affordable. There will be plenty of time to discuss these differences when the Congress does not become a rubber stamp for Trump.
In the capitalist socialist spectrum, I am in the middle. The structure of England and the Nordic countries are fine. I am vehemently against unbridled capitalism, the Gilded Age, which Trump wants to return to. Another writer touched on this briefly. It deserves greater discussion in a future letter.
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Gregory Cigal is a resident of Parkersburg.