This essay, given as a public address in St. Thomas in 1952, proposes that the West Indies represent “in microcosm the problem of our time.” Long exploited by the European powers as a “deliberate laboratory” of modern production techniques, the subjugation of labor, and the capitalist system, the West Indies now face the “world problem”: the urgent challenge of preserving capitalism’s increased power of production while using the wealth it generates to promote the health, well-being, and democratic voice of all people. Political and economic discipline can make the West Indies a haven not only for the wealthy but for all their residents: a paradise of the “higher and simpler life in which the human spirit blooms and unfolds.”