Volume > Issue > Bodies for Sale: The Inhuman Face of Industrialism

Bodies for Sale: The Inhuman Face of Industrialism

GUEST COLUMN

By Juli Loesch | June 1988
Juli Loesch is a writer, lecturer, and agitator in Washington, D.C. She lives in a mixed lay/religious community with the Religious of Jesus and Mary.

You are worth about $5.50,” gloats the sta­tistic-monger. “If you were cremated, the chemi­cals in your body wouldn’t be worth as much as a ticket to a first-class concert.”

“Four dollars an hour,” says my boss, equally pleased.

I do just enough unskilled factory work (for Manpower) to cover my room and board. The money itself doesn’t affront me, as if I had gotten a low bid at the auction block. But what does af­front me is the suggestion that the money could in any way compensate me for my body, my life, my time, myself.

Raw materials went into the factory and came out ennobled and man went in and came out de­graded (Pope Pius XI).

Enjoyed reading this?

READ MORE! REGISTER TODAY

SUBSCRIBE

You May Also Enjoy

Should Christians Pay Reparations for Racial Injustices?

The Church can engage in the work of racial reparations, but only while placing the project within a broader moral framework.

The Obsolescence of Left & Right

The “crisis of modernity” remains unresolved by a “sham conservatism” that merely sanctions the unbridled pursuit of worldly success.

Preparing for the Return of The Catholic State

Honoring Christ as Sovereign King is not contrary to or unrelated to the human person’s fulfillment, but rather it is a necessary condition for it.