Eleanor Roosevelt Quotes
[It is] a dangerous thing, it seems to me, when any one part of this country suggests that it may be a better place … merely because it has cheaper labor to offer. That never has been a thing, as far as I know, that we have been proud of.
Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962, First Lady (Franklin Delano Roosevelt), U. S. Delegate to the United Nations, Column, My Day, September 23,1936
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Sinclair had written an expose of the meat packing industry – the Jungle – which used as its setting the Armour meat packing factory. It changed the way the public thought about the industry, the role of government and regulation. President Roosevelt took up the reform role, and got Congress to Regulate the quality and cleanliness of the meat packing industry. Sinclair, however not only wanted that reform, but also wanted the labor wages and conditions reformed. He referred to the Armour plant as the fortress.
In his economic view, managers, accountants, attorneys, owners, shareholders, landlords, were all supported by the workers who have to support themselves and all the others.
This is not a common quotation from Thoreau. The great man for whom the establishment had so much respect had a very anti-capitalist streak. His view is that the employer will generally never pay his laborers a fair wage. Instead he will pay the laborer the lowest rate for which he can obtain the laborers services. If the laborer generates added value for his wage, the employer is in a zero sum game with the laborer. If part of the added value—the profit is paid to the laborer, the employer does not have it for himself (or his stockholders). In most cases, the laborer is forced to work for his and his family’s subsistence. This theory argues that they only way the laborer will get a fair wage is if there is a labor shortage (assuming no government laws or union pressure is in the picture. Many capitalists argue that a “fair” wage is what a free man is willing to work for and a free employer is willing to pay. So economics is like politics in general with respect to fairness—there is no universally accepted definition of what is fair.
Jefferson was one of the first political and economic thinkers to express concern over the “wage slave” concept of the industrial revolution. This was one of the major reasons that he was not in consonance with Alexander Hamilton in his economic vision for America. While we followed the Hamilton direction, there are still issues of maintaining freedom and independence for an employee in modern nations and economies.
Fallows was contrasting the benefit that offshore manufacturing brought many Americans in addition to the damage to the Americans who lost their jobs to Chinese manufacturing workers. The complexity was that the offshoring of manufacturing does damage to many American blue collar but benefits white collar workers.
At the time this was generally true for most businesses. However, in a modern economy, there are other ways. Increasing volume, automation, innovating products and services to get premium prices naw are standard techniques.
She was writing about the textile mills of Manchester, England in the Industrial Revolution. Workers’ wages were so low that many of them could not feed themselves and their family decently
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was an American political figure, diplomat and activist. She served as the First Lady of the United States from March 4, 1933, to April 12, 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four terms in office, making her the longest-serving First Lady of the United States. Roosevelt served as United States Delegate to the United Nations General Assembly from 1945 to 1952. President Harry S. Truman later called her the "First Lady of the World" in tribute to her human rights achievements.
