Wealth and Morality

Re Kristine McKenna’s March 11 article on artist Terry Allen:

Allen is guilty of a terrible but fashionable distortion of morality when he equates “evil” with “being rich.”

The human impulse Mr. Allen identifies as evil is to take more than one needs. What he really wishes to condemn, however, is a rational man’s desire to earn to the best of my ability .

This is because wealth, in a capitalist society, is not “taken”--by anybody or from anybody. It is created by men and women of reason and competence who are morally entitled to as much profit as their productiveness allows.

Mr. Allen, it is a monstrous injustice to damn the rich for being rich. It’s their virtue you find intolerable. From movies to music, the modern artist thunders against greed as the root of all evil. It is, in fact, the root of all economic good.

RUSSELL DVONCH

North Hollywood