To the editor:

As a socialist, I define socialism simply as the belief in prioritizing “people over profits.”

Capitalism is the opposite; at its root is greed. Since the New Deal, America’s had a mixed system. Our two most popular government programs, Social Security and Medicare, are examples of socialism. If you approve of either, beware — you may be a closet socialist!

Because capitalism seeks to maximize profits at all costs, its defenders seek to weaken things pushing against this end goal, like regulation of industry. We can see this dynamic playing out with the East Palestine catastrophe. It’s the result of railroad company Norfolk Southern maximizing its profits by running longer, heavier trains with fewer workers on them.

Republicans, who are more pro-corporation, anti-regulation than Democrats, are making hay over this disaster. But the Biden administration and its pro-corporate Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg gave them an opening by failing to strongly regulate the rail industry.

This catastrophe comes on the heels of the administration’s recent capitulation to the industry when our “pro-union” president prevented stretched-thin rail workers from striking for adequate sick leave — claiming that a strike would’ve cost America $2 billion a day. If rail workers are, in essence, worth $2 billion a day, shouldn’t their safety and well-being — like that of the people in East Palestine — be worth prioritizing?

To quote the philosophers Mitchell and Kristofferson, respectively, “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone,” and, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Workers of the world, unite!

Fred Balzac

Saranac Lake