LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: THE DISEASE IS THE LOSS OF MIDDLE CLASS VALUES

To the Editor,

A serious problem is discussed in John Bierk's letter to the editor. Not just the burgeoning numbers of teenage, illegitimate pregnancies but the general loss of the social values. While John's modest proposal would reach the pregnancy problem it does not directly reach the general loss of values.

We all would like to see a resurgence of what we generally know as "middle class values". Those inherent values that cause middle class people to get out of bed and go to work each day. To marry and raise children while taking those children to church on Sunday and to school on a regular basis. To teach our children to not steal, lie, cheat or be promiscuous. To abjure public profanity and nudity. Generally to believe that people have responsibilities to one another as well as rights for themselves.

These are the values that make a nation not only strong and self-reliant but also safe and prosperous. So how do we promote these values?

The standard answer since the early 1970s has been to pass tough criminal laws, build more prisons and preach morality. This has not been very effective. But it sure is attractive. So the politicians keep saying what people like to hear. Be tougher. More punishment. Stop being immoral. We ought to know better by now. You cannot legislate morality and you cannot talk people into being good. You can't build enough prisons if you don't get to the root of the problem.

Instead of treating the symptoms we could treat the disease. The symptoms are teen pregnancies, crime, drugs, etc. The disease is the loss of the middle class values. So where did they go? If we want middle class values how can we have them? By strengthening the middle class.

History should show us that the creation of conservative values by the middle economic class is not an accident. These conservative values have never been the property of the lower economic classes nor of the upper economic classes. Always the middle economic class. There is something about being better off than the lower class that makes people want to promote the values that keep them there. There is something about being in the upper class that makes people think the rules don't have to apply to them. But in the middle, people naturally gravitate toward a belief in hard work and strong families. The things that aid their continued prosperity.

The point is this: the middle class did not develop it's values in response to law or preaching. The values are a natural result of the middle class condition. So if we want the values back we should find a way to get back the class to which they belong. That must be done by tax policy.

We created the middle class with tax policy beginning in 1913. We destroyed it with tax policy in the '70s and '80s. Or so says Kevin Phillips in his new book Boilinq Point. Phillips is the Republican party strategist who wrote "The Emerginq Republican Majority" in 1968. He says our tax policy went wrong when we began to reward the upper economic classes at the expense of the middle class. He suggests that the only truly successful economic powers have been those whose tax policy built up the middle class. And, he argues, middle class values follow from middle class economic power. This makes sense.

To be sure, this solution to our many problems would take time. It doesn't have the blood-warming thrill of good preaching and it doesn't have a handy scapegoat like "welfare cheats", but it seems to make long-range sense.

JOHN L. COOK

Cape Girardeau