<< So from top to bottom the place was simply a seething caldron of jealousies and hatreds; there was no loyalty or decency anywhere about it, there was no place in it where a man counted for anything against a dollar. >>
Its from The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, what does the man and the dollar part mean?
<< No loyalty, no morals, etc. anyone will do anything to another person for money... I think.
yea thats about right it seems, anyone can be bought out for any sum of money, everything is corrupt
Money is more important than people. For example, higher profit is more important than safer working conditions for employees. >>
Please do not take Sinclairs work and try to read into it. Although the points you people have mentioned are important and insightful, they do not fully get at the point of that particular quote. let me try and break it down.
from top to bottom
that means that no one was exempt. The entire organization, without exception.
a seething cauldron of jealousies and hatreds
Note the wording. The place was no longer ordinary but was a maelstrom of madness full with the baseness of human nature, specifically of hatred and jealousy. Loyalty did exist and morals did exist. The loyalty was to oneself and to intentionally harming others for the benefit of the ego. Loyalty was only to the profits, and in the dirtiest way possible to appease the sense of wrong with some sort of action.
there was no place in it where a man counted for anything against a dollar
Note the use of the world place. This is no longer physical. This means a position or a job or a work. No longer concerned with anything but profits, the gluttons in charge lost sight of themselves and the possibility of higher profits through alternative action. Blind to the world and to themselves, they continually exploited the employees for the continual escape from themselves by the aquisition of money.
Sinclair's point was not only that the dollar and big companies were king. He was part of the progressivists, growing out from populist roots. He did make the point that money was valued above other ideas but that wasn't the main idea. As it pertains to that quote, the idea was that left without some sort of comparison or balance, companies will become places of intense evil without the possibility of redemption because people go mad without limits.
Cheers !
so i sit and laugh while i read the horors of meat..lol
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