A Sure-Fire Remedy; L.E. Read

The malady does not reach the malignant or virulent stage until the indignant individual turns to socialism, that is, until he advo cates coercion as a means of cor recting what he regards as eco nomic disparities and inequities. Diagnosis is now easy: the patient 299 300 THE FREEMAN May will turn to minimum wage laws, rent and other price controls, Fed eral urban renewal along with government housing and the like, subsidies to farmers for not farm ing and to others for services never rendered, strikes as a pricing mech anism for labor, restrictions on across-the-border travel, trade, and investment, and so on. When these symptoms appear, beware, for the disease is contagious! What can be done for these vic tims? Scolding, name-calling, im patience, intolerance is false ther apy and should be scrupulously avoided. No sound diagnostician fools around with surface mani festations; he approaches the problem systemically, as the phy sicians put it.