You pay indirectly? True. But what difference does that make?
You are well-to-do because you purchase without question the
product of men who are really slaves. You have brains, and by
combination have FORCED your employer to treat you decently.
Yes, and you deserve credit. But you are not fundamentally
superior to the other men around you. What are you going to do
when they demand treatment as good as yours? What are you going
to reply when they class you with the other plutocrats?
You enjoy the work of only ten or twenty underpaid men--that is
so. But you are in the same class with the plutocrat who enjoys
the profit on the work of ten or twenty thousand men.
Utter disregard of others--where it does not affect your own
wages--is your rule, and you know it. What better joke is there
than the joke about the union label? How many hats on your rack
have union labels in them? How many of you can swear no
sweatshop ever saw your clothes? How many of you would apologize
for not offering your friend a "union-made" cigar?
It is the nature of man to think earnestly of only one thing at a
time. If one pursuit really engrosses his attention he has
little time to think of anything else. In the hard struggle for
a living the workingman has little time for any thought save for
his OWN wage, his OWN stomach, his OWN welfare.
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