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
Champions of the global economy accepted a trade-off: a richer world but with a good many poorer Americans.
Recently I went with two of my sons to Nicaragua, where we spent time visiting schools, hospitals, clinics, a number of Managua’s barrio homes, and those of other cities.
The question remains for us, how do we obey the precept, the commandment to share our superfluous goods with the poor?