
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, March 24, 1990                   TAG: 9003262156
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

CAPITALISM'S AIM IS SELF-PRESERVATION

THE LOGIC of equating "pure communism (selflessness)" and "pure capitalism (selfishness)" in the letter of Harry W. Yeatts Jr. escapes me. In pure communism you have the non-producers stealing from the producers. The largest producers are the coerced few who would be the "selfless," and the covetous many would be the "selfish." There is more selfishness in communism than selflessness!

The substance of pure capitalism is not "selfishness" but self-preservation, the natural drive to preserve oneself, his family, his neighbor, his friends. Capitalism is not an inherently evil or greedy system, but communism or socialism is by definition evil because it legitimizes systematic theft. This theft we are forced to participate in by the confiscation of a portion of our income by April 15, to be redistributed by an appointed bureaucrat. We're already socialist!

Is it rational to think that any injustices in a capitalist society can be cured by mixing in communism (legitimized theft), or even democratic socialism (legitimized theft by majority vote)? GLENN SALISBURY COPPER HILL

by CNB