Anti-Job, Pro-Freedom Quote Of The Week 62

A poor man is not free and a destitute man is as much a prisoner as a convict; a convict generally eats better. A man who can't afford a streetcar ticket, let alone real travel, who can exercise no real choice in matters of food, clothing, and shelter, who cannot follow the siren song of the TV commercials, who can scarcely afford bus fare to the library let alone a proper education for himself or his children - is such a man free in an affluent nation? There are such men and women in Canada and their numbers are legion. Until there is a basic economic floor beneath them, these people cannot begin to participate in the whole range of what we mean when we talk glibly about a free society.
Pierre Berton,
The Smug Minority, p. 42-43