Business

A satirical verse from the master of American cynicism. Ambrose Bierce turns his venomous wit toward the sacred institution of commerce, dissecting the transactions and pretensions of the business world with the precision of a surgeon and the cruelty of a critic who has seen too much. These lines expose the hollow rituals of trade, the self-important jargon, and the uneasy bargain between labor and lucre that defines so much of human struggle. Bierce, who chronicled war, death, and the supernatural with unflinching clarity, here turns his gaze on the mundane machinery of capitalism and finds it equally worthy of his mordant scrutiny. For readers who delight in the Devil's Dictionary's savagery, this brief poem offers the same pleasures: sharp observations wrapped in sharper language, and a perspective on human nature that refuses to soften its conclusions.