Precisely the same is true of the "inefficiency" of the poor. Nothing is
more common than to hear men and women, often incapable themselves of
earning by work the money which they spend, assigning as the root of
poverty the inefficiency of the poor. It is quite true that the "poor"
consist for the most part of inefficient workers. It would be strange if
it were not so. How shall a child of the slums, ill-fed in body and
mind, brought up in the industrial and moral degradation of low city
life, without a chance of learning how to use hands or head, and to
acquire habits of steady industry, become an efficient workman? The
conditions under which they grow up to manhood and womanhood preclude
the possibility of efficiency. It is the bitterest portion of the lot of
the poor that they are deprived of the opportunity of learning to work
well. To taunt them with their incapacity, and to regard it as the cause
of poverty, is nothing else than a piece of blind insolence. Here and
there an individual may be to blame for neglected opportunities; but the
"poor" as a class have no more chance under present conditions of
acquiring "efficiency" than of attaining to refined artistic taste, or
the culminating Christian virtue of holiness. Inefficiency is one of the
worst and most degrading aspects of poverty; but to regard it as the
leading cause is an error fatal to a true understanding of the problem.
We now see why it is impossible to seriously entertain the claim of Co-
operative Production as a direct remedy for poverty.
Pages:
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213