Tracy had heard enough. He said crisply, "All right, Mr. Flowers, of Freer Enterprises, now let me ask you something: Do you consider this country prosperous?"
Flowers blinked. Of a sudden, the man across from him seemed to have changed character, added considerable dynamic to his make-up. He flustered, "Yes, I suppose so. But it could be considerably more prosperous if—"
Tracy was sneering. "If consumer prices were brought down drastically, eh? Mr. Flowers, you're incredibly naïve when it comes to modern economics. Do you realize that one of the most significant developments, economically speaking, took place in the 1950s; something perhaps more significant than the development of atomic power?"
Flowers blinked again, mesmerized by the other's new domineering personality. "I ... I don't know what you're talking about."
"The majority of employees in the United States turned from blue collars to white."
Flowers looked pained. "I don't—"
"No, of course you don't or you wouldn't be participating in a subversive attack upon our economy, which, if successful, would lead to the collapse of Western prosperity and eventually to the success of the Soviet Complex."
Mr. Flowers gobbled a bit, then gulped.
"I'll spell it out for you," Tracy pursued. "In the early days of capitalism, back when Marx and Engels were writing such works as Capital, the overwhelming majority of the working class were employed directly in production. For a long time it was quite accurate when the political cartoonists depicted a working man as wearing overalls and carrying a hammer or wrench. In short, employees who got their hands dirty, outnumbered those who didn't.