You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the Company Store.

The line "I owe my soul to the company store" refers to debt bondage. This is where workers were paid in script (like a company gift card), and not cash, which were redeemable only at the company store. They were kept under a system where they were enslaved to a company because of debt.

 

How does this relate to today's economy? Corporations have taken control and are changing our democracy to an oligarchy. Profit is the only driving force. They have become sentient beings according to the Supreme Court, but they aren't held to the same laws we are. If a corporation kills people, shouldn't it get a corporate death penalty? We owe our house payments to them; we pay our car payments to them; we even rely on them for our health care. Credit card companies, until very recently, had no bars on how high an interest pay-ment could be---basically, legal loan sharks. In short, we owe our souls to the "company store."

How did the early miners break their shackles? One word: "unions." Organized labor met the challenge as we must now. We have been driven down a road where our spending dollars have fallen. Just as the miners were, we have become a country of debtors. We don't live to work, but work to live. Most of us are two-income fam-ilies, not because we want to, but because we have to. The corporations send our jobs overseas and yet they expect us to buy their goods and services, a situation which can only mean disaster for the middle class. The corporations are now jeopardizing their workers' safety, as you have seen in the recent coal mine disaster, and will gladly jeopardize the environment for profit as well, like in the recent oil spill in the Gulf Coast.

The people that have been calling for less government and say "corporations can do it better," have very short-term memories. Has the banking industry done it better? Has oil industry done it better? Has the insurance industry done it better? No, but the American people have done it better. In short, the government. The company store can be owned privately, but it must be regulated by the people of the United States, "the United States government." Our elected officials need to keep our interests and safety first when making policy. The Democratic Party has been the party of the working people and it needs to stay that way, and to be there for us.

The words of Sixteen Tons should read:

Sixteen tons, and what do you get?
Health care, fair wages, and equal pay,
Good, safe working conditions, retirement someday.
And a government FOR the people, ain't it better this way?