To the Editor:

You argue that CUNY should not depend on Citibank and other capitalist institutions. It does, whether CUNY likes it or not and whether the capitalist institutions like it or not. CUNY is made possible by taxes, and taxes are made possible by wealth-producing enterprises such as Citibank.

Look around, and you'll realize that Citibank and its parent, Citigroup, is a substantial economic engine in this city. The Citigroup financial empire spans the globe, making possible a many types of economic development in countries rich and poor and thereby making money, much of which it brings home to the city that gave it its name. It takes no research, only a glance at the skyline, to realize that billions of dollars flow into New York through Citigroup. Some of that money goes to CUNY.

Citigroup is, like all banks, in the lending business. What is a loan? To the bank, it's an investment, profitable only if the borrower turns out to be able to pay. To the borrower, it's an opportunity to go to school, to start a business, to build a life to pursue happiness. A bank, like a university, opens doors. And when New Yorkers walk through those doors, they make money. Some of that money goes to CUNY.

Is CUNY the justification of all this? No. All this is the justification of CUNY. What is an education? It's a personal resource that enables the student to choose goals, to achieve them, to build a life to pursue happiness. A university, like a bank, opens doors. And when New Yorkers walk through those doors, they make money. Some of that money gets deposited at Citibank.

This is the city of achievement. Our skyline including Citigroup Center is the product and symbol of the human mind set free. CUNY helps provide the foundation for New York's skyline. That is its mission. That is its justification. That ought to be its pride.

ALEX R. COHEN, J.D.

Doctoral student in philosophy

The Graduate Center

Note: My legal education was financed in part by a loan from Citigroup.

*************

Dear Alex R. Cohen, J.D.,

Reification is a widespread disease, and you seem to have caught a particularly nasty strain. You take capitalism at its word when it claims that everything good originates from it (since this world is, as you infer so strongly in your letter, the best of all possible worlds), and that life before was intolerable, if not downright impossible. Certainly there were no schools, businesses, or opportunities in which to pursue happiness prior to it.

A quick glance at the historical record proves this. Without Citibank's taxes propping up the massive Greek university system and building the formidable skyline of Athens and the other Greek city-states, Socrates would never be able to formulate his system of questioning (management strategies), Plato would not have created his commentary on forms (of economic development), and Heraclitus would never have been able to study flows (of transnational capital).

But reification is not your only problem you also misunderstand our argument. In fact, in the editorial we do not say that "CUNY should not depend on Citibank and other capitalist institutions." Actually, we do just the opposite, noting that we can "not posit a false or pure distinction between the actions of the market and the state." We do argue that "picking up money this way" (e.g. accepting advertising from institutions such as Citibank) poses the possibility of leading us "down the path of domestication before capital." But advertising and taxes are two entirely different things. If you understood this, why did you state that "CUNY is made possible by taxes, and taxes are made possible by wealth-producing enterprises such as Citibank"? If we are going to live under capitalism, for all its perks (which are potentially substantial) and atrocities (more than a few a few million, that is), we at the Advocate wholeheartedly endorse taxing financial institutions until they bleed, and using the money to support education and other public services.

Additionally, you fail to note that we were not targeting financial institutions in general, but rather Citibank in particular. Their egregious lending practices have destroyed lives around the globe - so much so that activist groups such as the Rainforest Action Network called for a boycott of their institution, and were successful in garnering concessions from them. We would have no objections to an advertisement from a financial institution such as the Lower East Side Credit Union which also makes door-opening loans, but without destroying the world's ecosystems or the lives of everyday people.

- Eds