Recently, many thoughtful remarks have been contributed by concerned writers to the editor. The writers, however, fail to grasp that the political push today – whether we like it or not – is what is currently labeled (incorrectly) “free enterprise.”
Social Security, medical insurance, child welfare, housing and public transportation relief, environmental stewardship, fish and wildlife preservation and many others are socially responsible efforts. The present mindset of government generally seems to be that all these features of modern civilized living in an abundant society produced with principles enunciated in our grandfather’s times should in these days be ignored.
A course being pushed by some is “privatization.” Would private savings accounts have built Muscle Shoals and the TVA, Hoover Dam and Bonneville? These were started over half a century ago and have made electricity cheaply available to the remotest farm and village in the nation. Who would prefer homespun clothing to the present government subsidized clothing interests? How many persons know that the Cotton Council (as well as the wool industry) has been intricately connected with Washington for many decades? How many people know to what depth the auto industry at many levels has been subsidized by government?
Could individual savings accounts have financed projects such as these varied efforts (and many more) successfully and profitably? Is privatization a sometime suggestion that will give us the answer? If so, for whom? The answer, my friends, is blowing in the wind.
Carle P. Graffunder
Everett
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