In memoriam

Today is the 100-year anniversary of the catastrophic fire at New York’s Triangle Shirtwaist factory, in which 146 fatialities resulted from the fact that the workers were locked inside. That was before my time, but I am old enough to remember the rhetoric surrounding the Berlin Wall, to the effect that free countries don’t fortify their borders for the purpose of keeping people in. The point? There is nothing democratic about business. People under lock and key are not free people. The idea that employment is a “contract” between “free individuals” is a lie; one that can only serve the interests of the privileged.