"It was unfortunate, but did not matter too much, if the boss was a bastard, a skinflint, a cheat, a no-good, so sharp with his men that one might--God forgive us--doubt he was a Jew. All that was to be expected of him, was of his very essence as a boss--for a boss, as my mother offhandedly defined the type in a sentence that lighted up for me our instinctive belief in the class struggle--a boss was a man who did nothing himself, sat by idly, enjoying himself, and got rich on the bitter toil of others. It was far more important to us that the boss be successful, full of work to give out. Let him be mean, let him be unspeakable, let him be hateful--he kept us alive."
From "A Walker in the City", Alfred Kazin
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