A fellow was telling me about an interesting conversation he heard the other day between a college boy and girl, on the one hand, and a gray-haired man, on the other. Seems that the youngsters were passing out handbills at a busy corner in a slummy neighborhood when the older one happened along. My friend was waiting for a bus, which was late, as usual, and heard the whole business.
The kids were wearing big buttons that screamed: “We shall not be moved!” and it was this that caught the old guy’s attention. “What’s this all about?” he wanted to know. "I used to sing that one on the picket line 30 years ago. ‘We shall not, we shall not be moved . . . Just like the cop who’s standing on the corner, we shall not be moved!’ But you're not striking. What’s the story?”
They laughed. “No. We know what you mean but this is different. We’re trying to stop Urban Renewal. They’re tearing down too many houses in this neighborhood and too many people are being forced to move out of it."
“Well,” says the old fellow, "what’s wrong with that? I’ve known this area for a long time and it's a pretty bad neighborhood to live In. Seems to me they should be glad to get out of it. Why look at that drug store over there. They’ve got a big display of roach powder and rat poison in the window, and I'll bet they sell plenty of the stuff. Look at all the old houses that are ready to fall down. And the crummy drinking joints, and broken glass, and win os Imagine bringing up kids in this sort of scene? And you mean you want to save it?” He looked them up and down.
But they weren't buying that argument. "Listen,” they told him. "We understand that as well as you do. But these people can't afford to live in other districts. They want to stay here but the Establishment is tearing down the low-cost houses and putting up expensive ones. These poor people have to live some place."
Well, my friend says, the old guy told them they were wasting their time. What they ought to be doing was working for the immediate end of the system that creates slums. "If you get rid of capitalism," he told them, "houses will be built because people have to live in houses, not to make money for landlords and lumber merchants. Food will be produced because people have to eat, not because owners have to make a profit. Clothing will be made because we have to wear clothing, not because manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers have to do business. Instead of a system where moneyed interests must find places to Invest, like Urban Renewal, we'll have a system where goods, buildings, services, and everything will be produced only to satisfy the needs and wants of everybody. We won’t need money because we'll produce only to take. You know what I mean — production for use, not sale. And we won’t have slums because nobody wants slums, anymore than they want cheap, shoddy goods.”
They listened to him politely. They were nice, well-mannered kids. But they told him, when they could get a word in edgewise, that his idea was wonderful but rather hopeless. After all, they told him, this is something we can hope to get somewhere with right now, not in the distant future.
Well, just then the bus came along and the old guy got on it so the debate was over. My friend told me, "You know,” he said, "those socialists are not as crazy as they might sound. Do you know how many years that neighborhood has been a slum? Seems that all the good intentions of all the reformers have been of little use. And in spite of the efforts these people put into their crusade to save the slums for the poor workers, the tearing down goes on. Seems to me that the hopelessness argument of theirs is all wet. It's they, not the socialists who are carrying on a hopeless struggle because even if they win they lose. What could be more hopeless than preserving poverty for the poor? I think I’m going to look into that socialism.
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