Did anyone think to ask those workers who were being so badly treated whether they thought they were "taken advantage of"? If the only alternative is to watch his children starve and his wife prostitute herself, perhaps that 61-hour work week and income an order of magnitude greater than his neighbor might be seen in a different light.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to be in those circumstances (well, actually, I can imagine it) and I thank whatever gods may be that in my entire life, from age 20 to age 63, I was never unemployed for even a single day, and for only one six-month period did I have a job that I didn't enjoy. For the final 25 years of my working life I did not even take time off because I enjoyed my work more than I would have enjoyed vacationing.

But do you honestly think that these badly used (by our standards) workers would be better off if they had no work at all?

tanstaafl.