Poverty makes some people insane

[abumbyanyothername]

is how Gold puts it. The hero's father, a house painter, becomes so dizzy from lead poisoning that he falls off some scaffolding and breaks his feet, but though capitalism has rendered him unable to work, he refuses to support any challenge to it, for fear he might someday have to surrender the millions he dreams of making (sic -- this is a quote and that sentence is so bad I am amazed it cleared the usually brilliant editors at the New Yorker). "I spit on a union! I do not believe in such nonsense! In America a man should make his own fortune."

From a New Yorker article discussing Depression era art and specifically in this paragraph referencing "Jews Without Money" by Michael Gold (1930).

I recognize the syndrome.

edited to add link