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

DATE: FRIDAY, January 24, 1992                   TAG: 9201280057
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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CONTRARY TO CLAIMS, ENTERPRISE ISN'T FREE

MANY NEWSPAPERS continue to describe our long-outmoded free-enterprise system as a free market. There is nothing as far from the truth. If you doubt this, ask any small entrepreneur.

You should add a touch of reality to your reportage and refrain from indulging in disinformation. In these modern days, fantasy replaces realism in news coverage.

More accurately, we live in a socialist welfare state, and have since the early '60s. Some economists, to be kind, call our present economic system "soft socialism" to make it more palatable to the masses.

Government interventionism in economic activity is regularly practiced in America today. This will continue unabated because it augments political ends. Under the free-enterprise system, no such thing is tolerated. Now, being politically astute, you know that, don't you?

Interventionism almost always results in less freedom, less democracy and more politicization of the social system. Are you pretending you don't know that, too?

America is no longer a true democracy, but it sounds good to say it. WILLIAM VASSALLO ROANOKE

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