The private control of credit is the modern form of slavery.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that the regulation and ownership of money and credit can lead to a loss of freedom for individuals, akin to slavery.
Upton Sinclair's quote points to the idea that when financial systems and the control of credit are in the hands of a few, it can lead to oppression and subjugation of the masses. The ability to access and control credit impacts one's opportunities and autonomy, creating a dependency that can be compared to enslavement. Thus, the quote highlights the importance of equitable financial systems to ensure freedom and independence for all individuals.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about economic inequalities in a seminar.
Human beings suffer agonies, and their sad fates become legends; poets write verses about them and playwrights compose dramas, and the remembrance of past grief becomes a source of present pleasure - such is the strange alchemy of the spirit.
I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.
And as for other men, who worked in tank-rooms full of steam, and in some of which there were open vats near the level of the floor, their peculiar trouble was that they fell into the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them left to be worth exhibiting,-sometimes they would be overlooked for days, till all but the bones of them had gone out into the world as Durham's Pure Leaf Lard! This contributed to the passing of the Pure Food Act of 1906.
Fascism is capitalism plus murder.
The old wanderlust had gotten into his blood, the joy of the unbound life, the joy of seeking, of hoping without limit.
One of the necessary accompaniments of capitalism in a democracy is political corruption.
Call a thing immoral or ugly, soul-destroying or a degradation to man, a peril to the peace of the world or to the well-being of future generations: as long as you have not shown it to be "uneconomic" you have not really questioned its right to exist, grow, and prosper.
Thou shalt not answer questionnaires Or quizzes upon world affairs, Nor with compliance Take any test. Thou shalt not sit with statisticians nor commit A social science.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
We with our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground.
Variant: When it is not in our power to follow what is true, we ought to follow what is most probable.
Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
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