I honestly have no idea when and where I found this. It almost sounds like Iggy. Either way, I couldn't agree more. What are your thoughts?
This one ought to be obvious, pardon my cynicism:
If you're "only" a reader, you're interested in self-improvement, not in being a replaceable go cog in the machinery.
On the other hand, if you're willing to sacrifice a significant portion of your waking hours for the purpose of chasing after some worthless tin trophy e.g. by being a competitive bowler or bar-pool player, that means the company can likely motivate you to work extra hard by waving similarly worthless trophies (like "employee of the month" awards) in your face, instead of compensating you with hard-cold cash, benefits, or paid vacation time.
Do you see now how this matters? Blind, and senselessly competitive people are just the right kind of exploitable employee material that they are after. They need "winners", who for the sake of winning a sales contest and a worthless plaque will risk a heart attack, while not even having the health insurance that will take care of them, when the consequences of their behavior catch up with them.
Ever notice the tone of health related reporting in the news? "Disease XYZ is a big problem, it costs $X billion in lost productivity to the US economy" that's pretty much a standard phrase. No mention of the suffering, the hardships on the families, etc. all that matters is the lost productivity (read: profits) for US corporations. As such, healing and preventive medicine aren't relevant. Give people a pill to cover up the symptoms and send the back to work. If they die one day after their retirement, they do us all a favor, because they are less of a burden on social security.
Humanism and the value and dignity of human life have long been thrown overboard, and people who tell it like it is, are being looked at as if they had two heads and came from a different planet, because the propaganda machinery works so well that most people don't even realize what's going on.
Slavery by another name is still slavery. Employees are simply the consequence of a rent vs. buy decision making process by the slave holders: if you own a person, you own their health problems and education needs, too. If you hire and fire, you externalize these costs.
