Whatever is wrong--and we all know that much is wrong--can be righted by
a clear definition of the wrongness. We have been looking so much at one
another, at what one has and another lacks, that we have made a personal
affair out of something that is too big for personalities. To be sure,
human nature enters largely into our economic problems. Selfishness
exists, and doubtless it colours all the competitive activities of life.
If selfishness were the characteristic of any one class it might be
easily dealt with, but it is in human fibre everywhere. And greed
exists. And envy exists. And jealousy exists.
But as the struggle for mere existence grows less--and it is less than
it used to be, although the sense of uncertainty may have increased--we
have an opportunity to release some of the finer motives. We think less
of the frills of civilization as we grow used to them. Progress, as the
world has thus far known it, is accompanied by a great increase in the
things of life. There is more gear, more wrought material, in the
average American backyard than in the whole domain of an African king.
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