ment, but also death from diseases to which white men have become partially immune. It is admitted that the best negro workers are the "raw natives," fresh from the bush, uncontaminated by previous experience of wage-earning. Nevertheless, no one effectively contends that they ought to be preserved from the deterioration which we bring, since no one effectively doubts that it is good to increase the world's production at no matter what cost.
The belief in the importance of production has a fanatical irrationality and ruthlessness. So long as something is produced, what it is that is produced seems to be thought a matter of no account. Our whole economic system encourages this view, since fear of unemployment makes any kind of work a boon to wage-earners. The mania for increasing production has turned men's thoughts away from much more important problems, and has prevented the world from getting the benefits it might have got out of the increased productivity of labor.
When we are fed and clothed and housed, further material goods are needed only for ostentation.[1] With modern methods, a certain
- ↑ Except by that small minority who are capable of artistic enjoyment.
