Letter to the Editor Socialism is unjust

In his speech to the student body Sept. 14, Bernie Sanders said, “In my view, it would be hard for anyone in this room today to make the case that the United States of America … is anything resembling a just society today. In the United States of America today there is a massive amount of injustice in terms of income and wealth inequality.”

Income inequality exists in every country, but is income inequality a form of injustice? According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, injustice is “a situation in which the rights of a person or a group of people are ignored.” Assuming one’s money was earned justly, what “right” is being ignored if one person has a $1 million and another person has only $100?

Sanders seems to think that the mere acquisition of wealth is ignoring or violating someone else’s rights, though I cannot fathom which one. There is no constitutional right to income and wealth equality, and even if there was, how would such equality be achieved since wealth is intimately linked to behavior? Two people who make the same income could have vastly different wealth based solely on their behavior. For example, what if one gambles himself into continual debt?

Sanders also alluded to capitalists as greedy individuals doing “enormous harm” to our society. I do not see how that is true. Only free-market capitalism is based solely on the voluntary exchange of money for goods and services. The free market pits the buyer’s interest (to save money) against the seller’s interest (to make money) to find a fair market price for goods and services. Competition also inspires innovation to ensure new and better services and products – the highest quality at the lowest price.

Socialism is rooted in greed. Socialists envy the rich and seek to forcefully take their wealth. It is theft because it is involuntary and serves one group at the expense of another group. Socialism truly does violate our rights, specifically personal property rights, and strips people of the incentive to work hard and innovate. The voluntary exchange of money for value is not injustice, but the involuntary exchange of money from one person to another is.

Sanders claims to seek justice, and his heart may be in the right place, but it seems to me that the methods of socialists are unjust, and the results of socialism are disastrous.

Dr. Daniel Howell Professor of Biology