Private ownership of tools, a basis of freedom when tools are simple becomes a basis of enslavement when tools are complex. - Upton Sinclair

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Engraved portrait of Upton Sinclair, facing left

Private ownership of tools, a basis of freedom when tools are simple becomes a basis of enslavement when tools are complex.

English
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About Upton Sinclair

Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. (20 September 1878 – 25 November 1968) was a prolific American author who wrote in many genres, often advocating Socialist views, and achieved considerable popularity in the first half of the twentieth century.

Biography information from Wikiquote · Portrait adapted from Wikimedia Commons (Public domain / CC0)

Also Known As

Pen Names: Clarke Fitch Arthur Stirling Frederick Garrison
Alternative Names: Upton Beall Sinclair Upton Sinclair Jr.

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Additional quotes by Upton Sinclair

After Jurgis had been there awhile he would know that the plants were simply honeycombed with rottenness of that sort — the bosses grafted off the men, and they grafted off each other; and some day the superintendent would find out about the boss, and then he would graft off the boss. Warming to the subject, Tamoszius went on to explain the situation. Here was Durham's, for instance, owned by a man who was trying to make as much money out of it as he could, and did not care in the least how he did it; and underneath him, ranged in ranks and grades like an army, were managers and superintendents and foremen, each one driving the man next below him and trying to squeeze out of him as much work as possible. And all the men of the same rank were pitted against each other; the accounts of each were kept separately, and every man lived in terror of losing his job, if another made a better record than he. So from top to bottom the place was simply a seething caldron of jealousies and hatreds; there was no loyalty or decency anywhere about it, there was no place in it where a man counted for anything against a dollar. And worse than there being no decency, there was not even any honesty. The reason for that? Who could say? It must have been old Durham in the beginning; it was a heritage which the self-made merchant had left to his son, along with his millions.

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