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Let’s focus on the real solution

The question is not socialism or capitalism, which is best?

Re: “The real problem,” Letters, March 23, addressing teachers and unions

The question is not socialism or capitalism, which is best?

Both ideologies have examples of how things can go terribly wrong for many, many people when taken to the extreme.

No system, no government, no ideology is going to succeed in the long term if it is motivated by greed, by an economic dynamic that aims for imbalance in gain and loss.

As long as profit (or surplus) is the only bottom line, the quality of our lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren will be negatively impacted by the very imbalance we wish to perpetuate.

I do believe in healthy competition as a means for challenging the individual and for increasing public wealth (knowledge, expertise) and the quality of everyone’s lives.

We need, as a society, to live by a new model of sustainability — the triple bottom line: with consideration to profits, people and place (environment). We need to stop taking and grasping for more when we know, with every fibre of our being that that means someone has less.

Imagine a life where we all look out for each other. Imagine waking up every morning with a personal goal to make sure that nobody else has less than you.

Imagine a world where everybody wakes up knowing that there is enough.

Janet Stephenson

Nelson