"Not only Wagner, but Ibsen, Shaw, and others call attention to the moral dilemma that beset the nineteenth-century industrial society, as it does ours today. When getting gain entails the destruction and degrading of life, what should we do? Undershaft, Shaw’s super tycoon, replies with the simple motto, 'Unashamed.' The great fortunes that made America a world-class power were paid for by mill towns in which life was very near to hell. But the owners lived far away, and starving immigrants desperately competing for jobs were willing to submit to anything."