Capitalism still works for all of us

Ijust returned from my first trip to Italy. What an amazing country with such incredible history. I saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the beautiful churches of Siena, the quaint beauty of the walled city of Lucca and more.

It’s always interesting to visit other countries.

It helps us understand the world is a bigger place and doesn’t revolve around the United

States, as we sometimes think. You learn so much about other cultures and how their customs differ from ours. And they surely do differ

Also, I always seem to learn when I travel abroad that, as Dorothy in the “Wizard of Oz” said, “There’s no place like home.”

Call me a small thinker, but after a week in any country, I’m ready to come home. That’s right, I’m staring at Michelangelo’s original statue of David in a breathtaking 12th-century building and I’m thinking about home.

I love my Lehigh Valley cities. What can I say? My Lehigh Valley restaurants, my workout walks in the Lehigh Parkway, my job, my house, my friends, my colleagues and my family. I love the Lehigh Valley connection we all share and the comfort of doing business with people you know and trust. I guess most people feel the area they live in is special. I do for sure.

When I was growing up, travel meant a yearly three-day trip to Atlantic City. That was the total extent of our travel with a family of seven children. And my dad was smart enough to drop us off and immediately return to Allentown to run the family business. It was part his work ethic and part the wisdom of knowing he’d be spending three days with that many children. So my mom and my aunt were only too happy to take on the responsibility and get away.

I remember the distinct and wonderful smell of the boardwalk, the sound of the ocean pounding the sand, the alluring aroma of the boardwalk food and the unique sound of sea gulls chirping. It was heaven on Earth. To top it off, one year I saved enough money and bought a transistor radio from a shop on the first floor of one of the grand old hotels. There I was, listening to the Motown sound of The Temptations at the touch of a button.

Having been to Italy, China, Brazil, Turkey and more, I’m learning that capitalism is fading at an alarming rate. I can feel capitalism, as we’ve known it, even losing its cache somewhat here in the United States. Some days I feel it’s hanging on by a thread. I don’t care if you’re a Republican or Democrat, capitalism has been our way of life and we built an amazing country on its back. But now it seems that more people feel it doesn’t work for everyone, or at least not enough of us.

More than 50 percent of millennials have little or no confidence in capitalism, and incredibly, more than 30 percent of millennials support socialism, according to a 2016 Harvard study. Forty-four percent of millennials would even willingly live in a socialist country.

I’m all in for capitalism. My dad and his family were the very essence of the first generation coming to America. They arrived from Italy and couldn’t find work, so they started a poultry business and made a nice living for their families. In a short time, this became their country and they loved it for what it gave them and defended it like it was theirs.

We also saw the tougher side of capitalism. Later on, my father lost his business when I was a teenager, and we had to move out of the family home we loved for so many years. He had to start

all over again at the age of 51. You see, he still had six mouths to feed. Fortunately, he got a job at what was then Western Electric and always worked part time for

my uncle. It was tough and it took some time, but he got back on his feet. He never made the money he had back when, but he bought a nice little row home and kept a roof over our heads and food on the table.

So, how do we keep an equitable balance between sharing the wealth while not deflating

the dreams of our economic drivers? You know the dreamers, the risk-takers, the relentless workers who never seem to quit. They're the type who want to create more and more and tend to hang on to what they earned.

I make it a point to ask ordinary citizens when I'm abroad how they feel about their

current conditions, and I can tell they generally don't feel the same optimism or opportunity we do. There are fewer of them chasing the dream, or at least fewer who feel like they can grab it.

We still have a country where you can start with nothing and end up better than you dream.

I think the future is about balance. Many of us have had it very good. We've had access, support and a lift-up by associates and family.

Let us be forever grateful to a system that allows most of us to chase our dreams and often realize them.

Let's also remember, as I

reminisce about the 12th-century cathedral, that the Bible says “To whom much is given, much will be required.”

Tony Iannelli is president and CEO of the Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce. He can be reached at tonyi@lehighvalleychamber.org.