"A Labor of Love"

By Paul Greenberg

"On this Labor Day, like most Americans, I come to praise labor, not indulge in it. Has there ever been a people that speechified more about the joys and satisfactions of work and the work ethic, yet was so enamored of labor-saving devices?

American efficiency, American organization, and therefore American prosperity has been something of an example around the world -- at least since Henry Ford, that half-genius, half-crank and all-American revolutionary, put the world on wheels. And sagely raised his workers' pay to unheard-of levels ($5 a day!) so they could buy the Model Ts they were making.

A few kinks have developed in the American image since"