INDEPENDENCE VERSUS DEPENDENCE 



And when physically or spiritually too exhausted to 

 spend his time looking for work, he spent it waiting 

 for business to pick up, so that he could get back to 

 his old job, whatever it may have been. And in doing 

 this, and spending his time in this way, he is encour- 

 aged by virtually all the relief agencies established to 

 cope with the depression up to the present time. 



But not only the relief agencies. He is encouraged 

 in the course outlined by the whole commercial world. 

 All our big industrial and financial leaders tell him 

 that he has only to wait that in time a readjustment 

 will be effected and that then employment will again 

 become normal. And they tell him to remember that 

 while he is unemployed their capital is unemployed. 

 While he has to worry about himself and his family, 

 they have the burden not only of trying to manage 

 their plants and to employ as many people as possible, 

 but also the worry of protecting the investors in their 

 business. So he is assured that everybody is in the 

 same boat; that it is only necessary to avoid rocking 

 the boat and sooner or later the pilots will get it back 

 safely into harbor. 



And of course the "pilots" or political leaders tell 

 him substantially the same thing. Great economic 

 forces about which they are often extremely vague 

 have upset the markets of the world. For the moment, 

 they are just as powerless in coping with these eco- 

 nomic forces as they used to be powerless in the face 

 of natural forces such as famines and plagues. While 

 the government and Congress experiments with one 



