“Should his own face in the mirror be too awful to contemplate (and it usually is), he might first take a look at the results normal people get from self-sufficiency. Everywhere he sees people filled with anger and fear, society breaking into warring fragments. Each fragment says to the others “We are right and you are wrong.” Every such pressure group, if it is strong enough, self-righteously imposes its will upon the rest. And everywhere the same thing is being done on an individual basis. The sum of all this mighty effort is less peace and less brotherhood than before. The philosophy of self-sufficiency is not paying off. Plainly enough, it is a bone-crushing juggernaut whose final achievement is ruin.”

Written by some very wise and fine people, in New York, 66 years ago