A letter to the Times from a Swedish citizen used the term: unrestrained capitalism.  He pointed out that Sweden had a mixed system of socialism and capitalism and it worked.  Yesterday I read that we have a socialist system working fairly well in America.  This is the Veterans Administration Hospital system.  Good services are delivered to the recipients and taxes cover the costs.

In America, democracy is sometimes equated with capitalism.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  We also make the mistake of equating democracy with equality – this is even further from the truth.  What we have in America is tremendous luck that our system of a “democracy within a Republic” works weakly as a political system but is a failure as an economic system.  There is no fairness in an election that is rigged or manipulated in the way votes are counted.  But, outside of Florida and few other suspect areas, our voting system works despite the tragically poor quality of our nominees for high office.

I have probably worked for a minimum wage.  I remember working for $.25 an hour during war-time before I went into service.  It was a numbing repetitive job.  I later worked for a brief period winding transformer cores but found I could make more money by doing piece work.  I simply produced more than the established minimum and confounded the slow workers by creating a maximum that they would not allow. This, too, was repetitive mind numbing work but I persevered and, until leaving to serve my country, I served myself by earning more than my more complacent co-workers. This was sort of “unrestrained working” until stopped by protesting co-workers who did not want to work as hard as I did. I was not a Stakhanovite and they certainly were no such “heroes” either.

Now, I have a problem with minimums which occupy the thoughts of workers and thinkers about the problems of production.  Certainly the stagnated minimum wage requires upgrading.  But all the attention is at this end of the economic scale.  Admiration is paid to those who receive bonuses on top of inflated wages while “working” as managers and Board members who do no work but who direct the fortunes of the businesses they run or own.  We have unrestrained capitalism here in America and most of the world that is not tainted with the words socialism or (gasp) “communism”.  Unrestrained capitalism is restrained for those at the bottom but not at the top.  In all fairness, I think that there should be caps on unearned income by those who sit in Boardrooms and in managers’ offices.  If there is a breakthrough in some area, that genius should be recognized and bonuses provided.  Recognition of workers and real competition of good managers would work in a restrained capitalism which desperately needs a universal health care system.