Bodies for Sale: The Inhuman Face of Industrialism
GUEST COLUMN
“You are worth about $5.50,” gloats the statistic-monger. “If you were cremated, the chemicals in your body wouldn’t be worth as much as a ticket to a first-class concert.”
“Four dollars an hour,” says my boss, equally pleased.
I do just enough unskilled factory work (for Manpower) to cover my room and board. The money itself doesn’t affront me, as if I had gotten a low bid at the auction block. But what does affront me is the suggestion that the money could in any way compensate me for my body, my life, my time, myself.
Raw materials went into the factory and came out ennobled and man went in and came out degraded (Pope Pius XI).
You May Also Enjoy
Father Peter left a profound and enduring legacy as a pastor who knew the “smell of the sheep,” working with zeal and love on behalf of the poor.
Christ’s earthly work, and ours, will be done when crosses are no longer needed for the salvation of men — when the poor are no longer with us.
The affluent of today are likeliest to enjoy the pleasures of a yeoman of yore. This, perhaps more than anything now, sets apart the “haves” from the “have-nots.”