"Like Christ, the doleful personification of ancient slavery, the men, the women, and the children of the proletariat have been climbing painfully for a century up the hard Calvary of pain; for a century compulsory toil has broken their bones, bruised their flesh, tortured their nerves; for a century hunger has torn their entrails and their brains. O Laziness, have pity on our long misery! O Laziness, mother of the arts and noble virtues, be thou the balm of human anguish!"
Paul Lafargue (1)
The idea that work is necessary seems natural, one MUST work to EARN a living. But must one work 8 hours a day, 12 hours a day, 18 hours a day? What does it mean that the wealthy don't work? What does the work we do have to do with fulfilling our everyday needs? What is the direct relationship between pushing papers and putting a meat loaf on the table? What is the value of our unpaid (or 'unproductive') labor? What is the value of rest?In the 1960s we were told that technology would eventually take over the menial jobs of our day-to-day existence making it possible for us to work only 3 to 5 hours a day. We should have suspected something, hadn't technology broken enough promises? The gains in productivity that technology has created have filtered upwards in the form of obscenely large profits rather than downwards in the form of shorter work days. Americans are working harder and longer than ever. And their 'free' time is consumed with 'networking' and leisure. When one works hard at having fun when will one find the time to question the way things are?In 1776 Adam Smith first wrote about the 'invisible hand' that rules the market place(2). Instead of trusting God and obeying his laws against usury (earning interest) and his commandments to care for the poor we began bowing to the 'invisible hand.' This country was founded on Christian values only to the extent that they could be made to serve our new god, the 'invisible hand' of the marketplace. And to this day the Christian Right picks and chooses which Biblical commandments to follow on the basis of which will render the most profit.Paul Lafargue (1)
Napolean was quoted as saying, "Religion is the only thing that keeps the poor from murdering the rich." And inducing fear in the population is the key function of fundamentalist Christianity. Dividing the population, fanning the fears of women, gays, foreigners and the poor prevents us from looking for the true sources of our problems. It prevents us from getting together and working out solutions with each other.American workers can no longer address these issues within the confines of our own 'country.' Just as God now bows to international corporate interests so does our 'nation'. We can no longer fight for 'our' rights because we as Americans no longer exist. We are generic workers among a world of workers. And when we've fought amongst ourselves long enough we'll all be making sneakers for 50 cents a day. If you haven't felt that downward slide yet you've probably seen it happen to someone else. We're all in this together now.If you were born into the working class much of your identity is based on what you do for work. When that aspect of your life is threatened, marginalized, dishonored your sense of self is diminished. We must begin to question the meaning of work and think about what it means to us personally. We must value our 'unproductive' labor - child care, house work, gardening, conversation, reading, cultural pursuits, art making, musing, day dreaming, napping, wasting time. All of these are necessary for a civilized society. The wealthy indulge in these but they are discouraged for the working class. They do not directly produce the profits of which the wealthy may take their share.Paul Lafargue (1)
Honoring labor and demystifying work go hand-in-(visible)-hand. The fruits of our labor are meant to bring joy to ourselves and those around us, whether paid or unpaid. Work, on the other hand, is little more than paid slavery. We, as workers, must challenge this structure and we can lean upon the teachings of Jesus to sustain us in this struggle.Paul Lafargue (1)
 UNDER DURESS |
Downsize This!
Random Threats from an Unarmed American by Michael Moore,
I highly recommend the essay, "Why Doesn't GM Sell Crack?" on page 253.
"When a company fires thousands of people, what happens to the community? Crime goes up, suicide goes up, drug abuse, alcoholism, spousal abuse, divorce - everthing bad spirals dangerously upward. The same thing happens with crack. Only crack is illegal, and downsizing is not. If there was a crack house in your neighborhood, what would you do? You would try to get rid of it! . . . As a society, we have a right to protect ourselves from harm. As a democracy, we have a responsibility to legislate measures to protect us from harm."Michael Moore
Corporate Crime and Business Criminals
A compendium of interesting, easy-to-read articles on corporate crime and corporate welfare.
The Hidden Crime and Violence in Corporate America,
by Mike Ewall, former Collegian Columnist. This article will give you a good idea of just how much corporate crime costs this country.
LaborWEB, run by the AFL-CIO. Sponsors Executive Pay Watch, Most of us are working longer and harder just to get by. Not so for America's corporate elite, whose exorbitant pay schemes have created unprecedented inequities in the American workplace. Why is CEO pay getting further and further out of line? How does it affect the rest of us who work for a living? And what can be done to rein it in?
Disgruntled, the business magazine for people who work for a living.
The History of the Work Ethic
"Mental labor was also considered to be work and was denounced by the Greeks. The mechanical arts were deplored because they required a person to use practical thinking, 'brutalizing the mind till it was unfit for thinking of truth.'"
NOTES:
(1) "The Right to Be Lazy" by Paul Lafargue from "Essential Works of Socialism," edited by Irving Howe, Bantam Books, 1970. Paul Lafargue was the son-in-law of Karl Marx and lived from 1842 to 1911. He wrote the essay, "The Right to Be Lazy" in 1883 to address the puritanical work ethic of the socialist party.
(2) "An Inquirey into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," Adam Smith, 1776. Smith suggests that if individuals are allowed to follow their own self-interests the market will run as if ruled by an 'invisible hand.'
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