Re “Whatever Happened to Discipline and Hard Work?” (Economic View, Nov. 13):

Yes, as Tyler Cowen says in the column, it’s true that our American culture has always had high regard for those able to rise from poverty to riches. But throughout our history, we’ve also been guided by a social contract that holds that no one in this country makes it alone, and that the needs of those who have helped the wealthiest to get where they are must also be met.

I’m not talking about handouts. I’m talking about fairly compensating those who have worked hard and long. That has certainly not been the case, especially in recent years when the wealthiest have received an unconscionably huge portion of the benefits.

Alvin Zubasky

Delray Beach, Fla., Nov. 14

To the Editor:

Many Americans are working longer hours for stagnating or declining wages and fewer benefits — and are facing the ugly prospect of financial insecurity in retirement. The problem is not the American worker; the problem is that Wall Street itself has no discipline and is hardly working for the average American.

The “entitlement culture” belongs not to lower-income Americans, but to the reckless Wall Street super-rich who assume that they are entitled to massive wealth for manipulating markets and creating bogus financial instruments.

The only way to bring Wall Street’s peculiar brand of crony capitalism to heel is to tax its transactions and regulate its behavior. If Congress has the will to do that, it will be through the discipline and hard work of millions of Americans who demand it.

Christopher J. Curtis

Northfield, Vt., Nov. 14

To the Editor:

The vision described in the column is not the Founding Fathers’ vision. Theirs was more complete: While discipline and hard work are important, they are less important than equality (of opportunity), fraternity (“a more perfect Union”) and liberty (basic human rights).

The Founding Fathers stressed these points in the Constitution — they did not stress discipline and hard work.

Whoever distorts “pursuit of happiness” into “pursuit of wealth” perpetrates the Animal Farm injustice (“all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”) on our nation.

Of course, the Founding Fathers also said “We the People.” They did not say “We the corporate persons.” Charles Kick

Honiara, Solomon Islands,Nov. 14

To the Editor:

No matter how disciplined and hard-working any of the “99 percent” are, the cost of education is a huge deterrent to achievement.

The efforts of some of the 1 percent to defund education at all levels leads to an impossibly big debt burden.

Or, it discourages altogether attempts to learn what’s needed to develop and maintain the technological society on which we all depend (especially the 1 percent). Margaret Eiszner

Kalamazoo, Mich., Nov. 15

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=29621abded2ab35899fb753f73903009