Letter to the Editor: How many poor can a society tolerate and still be a society that God wants?

Mr. Felsman, thank you for taking my thoughts seriously!

I am pleased that you say Ayn Rand does not represent what most capitalists think or feel. I just recall Paul Ryan, former Speaker of the U.S. House, saying that Ms. Rand was an important source of his thinking. 

It is certainly true that the poor will always be with us. The question is: How many poor can a society tolerate and still be a society that God wants?

Jesus spent a lot of time healing people, even people possessed by demons, and he also fed people. That says to me that God wants people to be healthy and to have enough to eat. God wants people to have life and have it more abundantly. Why should that kind of life be only spiritual? 

Cuba and Venezuela are examples of governments that have pushed a failed economic theory to absurdity. I am thinking more of countries like Norway and Germany. 

I agree that capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic arrangement in history, but the way we do it in our country has two problems. One, it leaves too many people out of its success and two, it ignores what its principles are doing to the environment. 

We are so concerned that no one gets hurt that we make medicine bottles impossible to open. Yet we accept thousands of people losing everything because of fires and floods and hurricanes that are more destructive than anything we have seen before in history. We strain the gnat and swallow the camel.

I don’t want to destroy capitalism. I want it to let more people into the game, and not have the game end because we have messed up the environment.

Brother Joe Zimmerman
Quincy, Illinois