Excerpt From Upton Sinclair's 1933 Book, `The Way Out'

  

In his 1933-published book, titled The Way Out: What Lies Ahead For America, 20th-century socialist journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair wrote the following:

"There is no greater economic delusion in the world than that of benefit in the process of shipping goods all over the earth. It is sheer waste, justified only in cases where the country has not the raw materials to make that particular product...It appears that the purpose of international trade is to bring...people down to the coolie standard.

"I say that the American workers have been perfectly right in their determination to prevent this. Let the consumer be required to pay for every product a price which will give living wages to the workers. But then, I add, let us see that the money goes to the workers, and not to speculators and parasites of one sort and another, collectors of interest, dividends, and profits. Very certainly this will not be achieved by letting foreign slave-drivers bring our wages down to their levels..."