SECURITY VERSUS INSECURITY I2J 



an existence just beyond the margin of want, nor a way 

 devoid of participation in the characteristic conveniences 

 of modern times; I do not mean a mere throw-back to the 

 simplicity that characterized American farm and rural- 

 town life up to fifty or sixty years ago; but I mean, can 

 a community organized on your principles not only afford 

 a sane, healthful existence to its members, but also, as 

 long as a capitalistic organization of society endures, a 

 modest and constant increment of usable wealth in the 

 form of money, to give access to the world and its goods 

 outside the community, to provide insurance against age 

 and casualty, and to provide some inheritance for the next 

 generation? 



Consider my own position. Born and raised in a city, 

 reared and educated not to use my hands but to use my 

 head to "get along" in life; overlooked by nature, how- 

 ever, in the distribution of the acquisitive instinct; I have 

 drifted and tumbled along through life, never producing 

 anything (except some negligible literature and criticism), 

 but precariously holding and losing various parasitical 

 jobs, seldom quite earning my way. Finally comes a small 

 inheritance, some of which was lost in Wall Street; the 

 bulk of it, small enough, is in the soundest investments the 

 country affords; which nowadays yield diminished income, 

 have in part lost their liquidity, and are slowly melting as 

 I draw on them to eke out earnings, by myself and my 

 wife, insufficient to meet the expenses of a modest scale of 

 living. I can in the nature of things have no program but 

 to live carefully and keep alert for another chance at 

 parasitical employment, in government or in private busi- 

 ness. 



