Akst Cuts Both Ways

It appears to me that although Daniel Akst’s main thrust in “The Real ‘80s” (Nov. 13) was on the development of the microchip and the expanded use of computers, he couldn’t resist liberal-style bashing of Ronald Reagan and the ‘80s. “. . . freedom and equality were in opposition, and equality was largely the loser.” Does equality mean taking from the rich and giving it to the poor. That doesn’t work, although it reduces everyone’s income.

He also writes: “. . .the mark of this prosperity was its unevenness; the best-educated benefited the most.” Why shouldn’t the best-educated prosper? They’ve worked hard to get their education.

“Capitalism--the word itself seemed a kind of expletive in our mouths--makes us flinch.” Akst writes for The Times and the Wall Street Journal, taking advantage of opportunities that capitalism provides. Does that make him “amoral” and “unworthy”?

Robert L. Franz

Placentia

*

Akst’s apology for the waste of the ‘80s bares the flaw found in business writing: a mindless juggling of statistics. There’s not a word about the degradation of the environment.

Short-term measures of economic expansion conveniently ignore the unintended consequences of nuclear waste dumps, rain-forest extinction, acid rain leaching metals from Colorado mines into the water supply, etc.--or they treat such consequences as the just costs (to the taxpayers, of course) of doing business.

Rex Styzens

Long Beach