n of resources and raw materials, of transport, of
credit, and of the more general phases of production and consumption.

There can be little difference of opinion concerning the necessity for
some such organization. A question may well be raised, however, with
regard to the probable developments of so vast a world machine. What are
its ultimate purposes? Why, in the last analysis, do men seek to improve
the economic and political structure of human society? Why organize at
all?

There is a clear-cut answer to these questions: Men desire changes and
improvements in their economic life in order that they may attain
greater freedom, and they organize for the purpose of making these
changes and improvements more easily.

Man is subject to many drastic limitations. First, there are the
physical limitations of his own body--its height, its reach, its
flexibility, its resistance, its fund of energy. Then he is limited by
nature--by the climate, the altitudes, the fertility of the soil, the
deposits of minerals, the movement of water. Man is further limited by
habit, custom, tradition, and by the opinions of his friends and
neighbors. Again, he is limited by ignorance, by fear, by cowardice, by
prejudice, and by his own lack of understanding as to the true nature of
freedom. In addition to all of these restrictions he is limited by the
economic bonds that hold him to his job, that tempt him with gain, that
drive him, day by day, to seek for food, clothing, shelter: for comfort
and luxury.

Only dimly do men realize these limitations. The more they learn, the
more clearly they understand the nature of the bonds that hold them, and
the better are they prepared to break down the most hampering barriers,
and to follow where aspiration and hope beckon. Yet, even among the
masses of the people, who have had little time to learn, and less in
which to reflect, there is a persistent longing to be free. The plea for
liberty always awakens a response in them because, through their own
lives they come into such intimate contact with the hateful burdens that
oppression lays upon its victims.

The longing to be free is probably one of the most widely distributed of
human qualities, and one, moreover, which men share with many of the
higher animals. The World War focused this longing and raised it to a
pitch of frenzied exaltation, under the spell of which hundreds of
millions fought and worked, as they thought, for liberty. The fact th