The Challenge to Democracy
'Economic Policy for the Common Good
Thus one comprehensive policy for the use of wealth
includes provision of amenities and luxuries for all,
control of supplies for the ordinary needs of living,
the better education of the consumer in the use of
what is available and measures tending to distribute
more equally the private purchasing-power which
each enjoys. The steps already made in distributing
good water and drainage as well as education have
greatly improved the kind of men and women who
make a community. Life is more secure and serene
and intercourse easier than it was in former centuries.
Carried somewhat further, a more equal income for
all would make a society of men and women, none
of whom would dare to condescend to "the poor"
and none of whom need cringe to others with higher
incomes. Manners would change. In a small town,
for example, in France, or America, or Scandinavia,
where there are no rich and no poor, but every one
has enough for security and simple luxuries, the
manners are quite different from those common in
Paris, or London, or New York. There is less for-
mality; perhaps, also, less fear of others; and much
more general sharing of whatever views and news
may exist. The level of manners in a more equal
society may be lower, if education does not raise
the level. But for the argument here, so far as economic
equality is concerned, it is asserted only that the
manners of equals would be very different from the
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