In Wednesday’s DI, Joe Futrelle attacks everything America stands for. Claiming that socialists are right, Joe attacks capitalism and the men who made America possible. Joe shows an unbelievable lack of reason and rationality.

Joe rails against CEOs who make many times more than the workers. Without CEOs like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Gordon Moore and others, nobody would have computers. Without CEOs like Henry Ford, nobody would have a car to drive, much less a job or school to drive it to. Without CEOs, the coffee farmers in question would have no products to harvest their crops or markets to sell them in. CEOs play a vital role in the success of any business venture and deserve every dollar they make.

Joe shares a looter mentality with every man who has ever tried to muscle in on the profits of those more able than he. According to Joe, government must seize the wealth of the competent to subsidize the incompetent. The men who give us electricity, clean water, plentiful food, computers and cars are inferior to the coffee farmer who seeks no ambition, creates no wealth and has no real ability. The most visionary and able among us should be punished ruthlessly for the insolence in trying to make the world a better place through technology and production.

Capitalism is the only rational economic structure. Without incentive to match production, we would have none of the things we value so highly today, including freedom. It guarantees that people are paid what they are worth; if you aren’t being paid enough, move on to something else (and there is always something else). To believe in socialism means you want to do business at the end of a gun, and you wouldn’t want that, would you Joe?

Ryan Dawson

sophomore in engineering