support life. In earlier economic stages we defended this as the reward
of Thrift and Sacrifice, and as the punishment of Ignorance and Crime.
To this the answer is sharp: Sacrifice calls for no such reward and
Ignorance deserves no such punishment. The chief meaning of our present
thinking is that the disproportion between wealth and poverty today
cannot be adequately accounted for by the thrift and ignorance of the
rich and the poor.

Yesterday we righted one great mistake when we realized that the
ownership of the laborer did not tend to increase production. The world
at large had learned this long since, but black slavery arose again in
America as an inexplicable anachronism, a wilful crime. The freeing of
the black slaves freed America. Today we are challenging another
ownership,-the ownership of materials which go to make the goods we
need. Private ownership of land, tools, and raw materials may at one
stage of economic development be a method of stimulating production and
one which does not greatly interfere with equitable distribution. When,
however, the intricacy and length of technical production increased, the
ownership of these things becomes a monopoly, which easily makes the
rich richer and the poor poorer. Today, therefore, we are challenging
this ownership; we are demanding general consent as to what materials
shall be privately owned and as to how materials shall be used. We are
rapidly approaching the day when we shall repudiate all private property
in raw materials and tools and demand that distribution hinge, not on
the power of those who monopolize the materials, but on the needs of the
mass of men.

Can we do this and still make sufficient goods, justly gauge the needs
of men, and rightly decide who are to be considered "men"? How do we
arrange to accomplish these things today? Somebody decides whose wants