LETTER: Just a little bit of socialism won’t ruin capitalism?

Gary Lewey’s Saturday letter claims, “We’re smart enough to figure out what is progressive capitalism and what are economy-ruining socialistic systems.” We are not. “There is no such thing as a mixed economy, a system that would stand midway between capitalism and socialism,” wrote economist Ludwig von Mises. One government intervention leads to an endless series of damaging others.

Mr. Lewey says he’s pleased with his VA health care the rest of us pay for. Taking from one group to give to another is not smart and leads to societal decay. “A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems,” von Mises explained, “it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society.”

The fatal conceit that government can fix some, or all, that ails us propels this disintegration.