Dear Senator Sanders,

I applaud your visit to Rome; your brief meeting with Pope Francis reinforces the public commitment you and he share towards a morals-based economy. That said, I do not share this perspective, even as I agree with many of your prescriptions.

Man’s capacity is beyond his imagination, as is his sometimes depravity. I prefer visioning a free market economy that prospers from the previously unimagined, while also providing the greatest protection from the authoritarianism and folly inherent to government control. Government promotion and regulation are essential to our complex economy, but there is a continuing need for a common sense that combines compliance and efficiency.

For me, as with Joseph Schumpeter, competition and innovation are the stuff of achievement and the better path to public and private bounty. Schumpeter presciently described the power of creative destruction that is such a distinctive and appealing feature of our world. Also, I distrust any philosophy based on “father knows best”.

I agree with you that many financial trading activities are of dubious merit and are selectively beneficial. I don’t know that underwriting credit default swaps rises to a standard of fraud, but it certainly creates peculiar incentives as it generates fees and commissions for the moneyed. The imposition of transaction taxes might usefully damp credit speculation while generating even more useful tax receipts. Bravo!

Your intention of “breaking up the banks” may be unwise. I don’t think size is the primary issue. The banking industry is in a continuing consolidation --- which I think improves efficiency. Circa 2008, the banks were not the problem. My guess is that when the next crisis happens, the private equity sector will be at its core as private market liquidity evaporates in the face of unrealistic, non-market valuations.

You have made income inequality a tenet of your campaign. Whether $12 per hour is a necessary step towards $15 or whether $15 should be an immediate national standard is but a data point of a larger conversation. Wage income has stagnated as union leadership has waned. I agree with you that a vibrant economy requires a middle class that is productively engaged, not struggling to provide services to the already wealthy. Again, bravo.

As I previously told you, we disagree sharply on trade. Displaced workers have my complete sympathy and I support compensation and re-training facilities. But I loathe restricting international trade which to me represents an extraordinarily constructive alignment of efficiencies and incentives. I encourage you to support the World Trade Organization and the specific regional treaties such as the Trans Pacific Partnership.

You make good sense on issues of immigration, gun control and climate change. 3 cheers.

I have confidence you have the experience and judgment to lead our foreign policy. My expectation is that you will continue the policies of President Obama. I would encourage you to try and retain John Kerry as Secretary of State.

Indeed, this ultimately is why I will vote for you in the NY primary. I do not see Secretary Clinton offering the same degree of independent thought and personal accomplishment.

BUT, since I sent you $100, you are obliged to listen to my concerns on a crucial issue, which is Israel. Certain incendiary headlines prompted concern about your inclinations. After searching you public statements, I am satisfied that you will not jeopardize Israel or undermine the long time friendship that exists.

Like you I am a Jewish American who has spent enough time in Israel to know the difference between the Golan and the Negev. We also can see differences in American and Israeli policies, if not interests. But just as the US must pursue its interests, Israel is entitled to its own policy decisions; it is they and their children that, after all, guard the wall!

The Israeli nation lives in a physical and emotional combat zone and is entitled to be vigilant in protecting their own and their interests. The US retains the right to criticize Israeli tactics and even take such actions into account. But public criticism is something else again. I do not think your comments about “proportionality” were well advised. Survival is not proportionate.

You may recall from your presumably post-1967 kibbutz sojourn that the general expectation was that the West Bank would eventually be returned to Jordan. Events, personalities and theologies have, since then, changed the parties, changed the facts on the ground and inflamed an already violent situation. Still, the US remains publically committed to some establishment of Palestinian right and poses as useful interlocutor.

And the Palestinians? They continue to appeal to the US, to Europe for the tangible support that will not be forthcoming. They embrace victimhood. Maybe it is time to tell them the obvious; time is not on their side and that American support is purely humanitarian. Maybe they need to accept that Israeli Lives Matter.

Parenthetically, Belgium and France have been the European nations most receptive and encouraging of Palestinian aspirations. Not such a great choice.

I commend you and Secretary Clinton on the intensity and quality of your respective campaigns and assure you that I will support whichever of you succeed to the nomination.

David Lang

The writer is adjunct business professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College