To the Editor:
The predicament of maintaining a comfortable secure life by turning over most of your income to the state (as described by Bernie Sanders and by those who practice this policy in Western Europe) is that it does not allow people who think outside the box to have available to them the necessary capital to develop new ways of accomplishing tasks or to develop new technologies.
When the state has all or most of the capital, thinkers and developers must beg politicians and bureaucrats for permission to change the way society does things; a very hard task.
In America, thinkers and developers solicit bankers or individuals who have private capital to invest in an idea with an eye towards increasing the investor’s own capital. Our system is about turning new ideas into more money.
The Western European Socialist system uses up what society has already created. The American system requires capital to constantly increase or else the business (or the whole country) eventually goes bankrupt. They turn $1.00 into 95 cents. The American system is designed to turn $1.00 into $1.05.
Lee Presser
Edwardsville