In Christopher Reardon’s June 3 letter, he accused columnist Nicolai Brown of being unaware of basic definitions of political systems. What Reardon himself is unaware of is that socialism cannot be defined with simple dictionary definitions, even those found in the introductions of his basic economic textbooks. There are many, many socialist theories.

In order to gain a complete understanding of socialism, rather than an almost meaningless definition, Reardon would need to read from authoritative sources such as Fourier, Owen, Trotsky and maybe even Marx and Engels, then synthesize their ideas into an understanding absent from any glossary. I’d be happy to lend Reardon some material, as it is apparent that he has the need and I have the ability.

Kendra K. Essman

Junior

Linguistics