138 FLIGHT FROM THE CITY 



expedient after another in its efforts to create a re- 

 vival of trade, a feeling of confidence among business 

 men, and a rise in prices, there is nothing for John 

 Doe and the millions like him to do but wait until 

 things pick up again. 



But what is even worse, our social reformers in 

 slightly different words tell him virtually the same 

 thing. There is nothing particularly wrong, according 

 to them, with the complex industrial system which 

 had formerly employed him. It is still a marvelous 

 system, far superior to any which had ever previously 

 been relied upon by mankind for supplying it with 

 its needs and desires. What is wrong is the control or 

 ownership of the system. It is the profit system, not 

 the industrial system, which is responsible for his 

 plight. According to them, all that is necessary is to 

 establish a plan board to adopt a five-year plan of 

 our own or to have the state take over the owner- 

 ship of industry altogether and run it for use and not 

 for profit. In the meantime, while we are still strug- 

 gling with the follies of capitalism and individualism, 

 all that can be done as a sort of stop-gap for the emer- 

 gency is to establish government employment agen- 

 cies, increase the numbers employed directly or 

 indirectly by the government, and adopt a system of 

 unemployment insurance. 



I disagree with all of them. The unemployed, if they 

 can't be given work here and now by our industrial 

 system, should not be asked to live half hungry, half 

 naked, half cold, while waiting for business to pick 



