I remember reading about the Triangle Factory Fire in my US History. The greedy owners locked exits and didn’t keep the building up to snuff so that it would be a deathtrap for the workers. Americans were outraged at that and demanded that workplaces be safe. Now I read of another garment factory fire in Bangladesh – and it’s not an isolated incident – and realize that owners can stay greedy longer than we can stay vigilant against them.

The greatest threats to democracy, freedom, justice, and equality come from above, not beneath. It’s the people with power and money that continue to work to steal more power and more money from everyone else. If they can do one of those moves honestly, fine. If not, they’ll cheat.

Americans and Europeans and Japanese enjoy laws that require workplace safety, limits on the length of the workday, and prohibitions on the exploitation of children. Those things will make labor more expensive and will reduce overall profitability, but they serve society by not working the general population to death.

So what do all the so-called “job creators” that are throwing tantrums in the USA do? If possible, they move their operations to where they don’t have to have workplace safety, limit the workday, or worry about exploiting children. They dive right on in and re-create the terrifying conditions we revolted against. They find poor people and make slaves of them.

The solution is simple: hold those corporations responsible for the conditions they create. We already have laws that allow us to prosecute people for going overseas to commit acts of depravity that are illegal here. Extend the concept to corporations. If they want to do business in America, they have to treat their workers overseas as well as they would have to treat American workers.

Of course, that would just mean those fat cats would put more effort into less-visible illegal activities, but at least we’d be able to end our civilization on a moral high note. Because until the parasite upper class ceases to be so, we will be forever tormented by their sociopathic schemes to undermine all that is good and just in our world, that they might be able to murder to get gain.