The Monopoly of Life and Labor
An editorial questioning the morality of the super-rich funding medical research while their monopolies squeeze the working class.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Why try to either save or prolong human life? From some points of view there are too many people now. There are more men than jobs, or chances to work. There are more families than good houses for them. To save the lives of the sick, and prolong the lives of the race generally, will make people thicker and render competition for jobs keener, so that people will be forced to sell their labor cheaper. The thing that makes jobs few, that destroys free opportunity for self-employment, is Monopoly. And of the earth's monopolists, Mr. Rockefeller is perhaps the greatest. This lonely old man who gives millions to the holy cause of healing is the most perfect representative of the thing that would make perfect healing a Dead Sea fruit in our mouths.
“Why not adopt the old axiom of political economy that war, vice, pestilence and famine are necessary medicine of the state, to carry off the surplus population?”
This editorial exposes the tension between corporate-funded philanthropy and systemic economic inequality. It mirrors modern debates about billionaire-led social engineering and the 'gig economy' where basic survival costs, like housing and healthcare, remain out of reach for many.
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