And the Welcome friends to another edition of Economic Update, a weekly program devoted to the economic

dimensions of our lives and those of our children. I'm your host Richard Wolf. I want to quickly remind you that Charlie Fabian, a volunteer who works with us,

is ready and willing to take your suggestions for the program,

your documents if you have them.

That's what he's there to do.

It helps us design the program in a way

that meets your interests above all else.

And I also want to start before jumping into today's topic

by reminding you that we now have a new book just released

called Understanding Capitalism. I wrote it as the third in a

three volume set we earlier published Understanding Marxism, then we published understanding socialism,

and now we published understanding capitalism. I think you'll find it an accessible way to get involved in bringing the problems,

the possibilities of capitalism more into your understanding and your work. That's why we wrote it. I think

you'll find it worthwhile and you can find all about it at democracy at work. Work. Info, our website.

Today's program is an attempt by me and by Democracy at Work

to honor Labor Day, or to be more exact, to honor Labor Day or to be more exact to honor what Labor Day could and should

mean but too rarely does and I thought the best way I could introduce it is by reading to you a quotation

from President Abraham Lincoln. It's not perhaps the Lincoln, you know, from the Emancipation Proclamation, his most famous document, and for obvious reasons.

It's less well known also for obvious reasons that you'll understand as I read it to you.

It's very short and I think it's worth pondering. Here we go. It's part of a message delivered to Congress

by the then sitting President Lincoln on December 3rd of 1861.

So it's well into the American Civil War,

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