Economic Insecurity and Material Life
It is a curious fact that as we leave the most impoverished peoples of the world, where the human being with his too few energy to provide for himself a bare subsistence, we find the economic insecurity of the individual many times (47)______ . The solitary Eskimo, Bushman, Indonesian, Nigerian, left to his own devices, will (48)______ a considerable time. Living close to the soil or to their animal prey, the peoples with the lowest standard of living in the world can sustain their own lives, at least for a while, almost single-handed. With a community (49)______ only a few hundred, they can live indefinitely. Indeed, a very large percentage of the human race today lives in precisely such (50)______ — in small, virtually self-contained peasant communities which provide for their own survival with a (51)______ of contact with the outside world. This large majority of mankind suffers great poverty, but it also knows a certain economic independence.
When we turn to the New Yorker or the Chicagoan, on the other hand, we are (52)______ by exactly the opposite condition, by a great ease of material life, coupled at the same time by an extreme dependence of the individual in his search for the means of existence. In the great metropolitan areas where most Americans live, we can no longer imagine the solitary individual or the small community surviving, if they do not rob for food and (53)______ . The majority of Americans have never grown food, caught game, raised meat, ground grain into flour. Faced with the challenge of clothing themselves or building their own homes, they would be (54)______ untrained and unprepared. Even to make minor repairs in the machines which surround them, they must call on other members of the community whose (55)______ it is to fix cars, or to repair plumbing, or whatever. Perhaps, the richer the nation, the more apparent is this (56)______ of its average inhabitant to survive unaided and alone.
Word Bank
A) fashion I) necessities
B) ability J) casually
C) inability K) survive
D) minimum L) independence
E) evolved M) numbering
F)multiplied N) hopelessly
G) struck O) business
H) previously