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Working ourselves to death...for no good reason.
I came across this essay while paroosing one of the progressive
news sites. It really is quite good and if you can find the time
between the brain draining drivel on the video screen and the
home work you need do before the little sleep you get before
going back to work - do read it.
Here are a few of my favorite parts.
a real job in some areas such as the arts or entertainment.
And even some technical field or working for the government,
national or state. Yet those areas are even more rigid that the
private sector.
financial institutions and government all the while bending over
with this sick grin on our face and stating in a loud gleeful voice.
"Thank you sir ! Can I have another." like some eager fraternity
pledge.
productivity ? When at this juncture it should be obvious to all that
it has not produced peace and prosperity to anyone but a few in the
upper economic strata. That we are not healthier or happier for it.
That all we have produced so far are a lot of mindless toys and a
great deal of personal and national debt.
That in fact the whole facade has systematically unraveled will not
likely regain anything remotely resembling what it once was.
That we are quite literally working and producing ourselves into an
economic and emotional abyss. With both sides blaming the other
while clinging to the rocks by their finger nails.
C
news sites. It really is quite good and if you can find the time
between the brain draining drivel on the video screen and the
home work you need do before the little sleep you get before
going back to work - do read it.
Here are a few of my favorite parts.
It may be my bias, or my imagination, or my distasteThis is so true. There is still this notion that you are not doing
for toil, but from here America looks like one big
workhouse, "under God, indivisible, with time off to
shit, shower and shop." A country whose citizens have
been reduced to "human assets" of a vast and
relentless economic machine, moving human parts oiled
by commodities and kept in motion by the edict,
"produce or die." Where employment and a job
dominates all other aspects of life, and the loss of
which spells the loss of everything.
Yeah, yeah, I know, them ain't jobs -- in America we
don't have jobs, we have careers. I've read the
national script, and am quite aware that all those
human assets writing computer code and advertising
copy, or staring at screen monitors in the "human
services" industry are "performing meaningful and
important work in a positive workplace environment."
Performing? Is this brain surgery? Or a stage act? If
we are performing, then for whom? Exactly who is
watching?
Proof abounds of the unending joy and importance of
work and production in our wealth-based economy. Just
read the job recruitment ads. Or ask any of the
people clinging fearfully by their fingernails to
those four remaining jobs in America. But is a job --
hopefully a good one -- and workplace strivance
really everything? Most of us would say, "Well of
course not." But in a nation that now sends police to
break up the tent camps and car camps of homeless
unemployed citizens who once belonged to the middle
class, it might well be everything.
a real job in some areas such as the arts or entertainment.
And even some technical field or working for the government,
national or state. Yet those areas are even more rigid that the
private sector.
But you won't hear anyone complaining. AmericaYes we cheerfully welcome being screwed by our employers,
doesn't like whiners. A whiner or a cynic is about
the worst thing you can be in the land of gunpoint
optimism. Foreigners often remark on the upbeat
American personality. I assure them that our American
corpocracy has its ways of pistol whipping or
sedating its human assets into the appropriate level
of cheeriness.
Appearing cheerful is vital in a society where all of
life is monitored by an employer, a credit rating
bureau or the media's projection of the world, and
mediated by the financialization of life's every
aspect. Every action and movement is a transaction,
some as large as the mortgage, others as small as the
purchase of a bus token, or the cost of a cell phone
call, gasoline, vehicle maintenance and parking costs
for movement within the sprawling asphalt grids we
call communities. Even respite from work with its
vacation "leisure destinations" put on the credit
card, and even the greatest commons of all, nature,
has a cost of access, whether it be admission to
national parks or the cost of camping and other
"recreational equipment."
financial institutions and government all the while bending over
with this sick grin on our face and stating in a loud gleeful voice.
"Thank you sir ! Can I have another." like some eager fraternity
pledge.
But the truth is that we are all very commonly issuedWhich begs the question of why ? Why all this focus on monetary
products of a profit driven workhouse where no human
commons is allowable, lest the workers find meaning
and joy in each other as human beings, and perhaps
become less work driven, less productive and less
profitable. Best that their lives remain mediated,
disembodied from the great commons of the human
spirit, unmoored from the great natural commons
binding all living things called Earth --
images of which will be provided for your delight on
The Nature Channel at 9 PM tonight.
Until then, stay cheerful.
Pay your bills on time.
Good night!
productivity ? When at this juncture it should be obvious to all that
it has not produced peace and prosperity to anyone but a few in the
upper economic strata. That we are not healthier or happier for it.
That all we have produced so far are a lot of mindless toys and a
great deal of personal and national debt.
That in fact the whole facade has systematically unraveled will not
likely regain anything remotely resembling what it once was.
That we are quite literally working and producing ourselves into an
economic and emotional abyss. With both sides blaming the other
while clinging to the rocks by their finger nails.
C
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Very well presented. I couldn't agree more with what I've read (although I confess I haven't clicked over to the entire essay, yet.)
I keep mentioning my Brazilian wife... and what I've learned from her...
This is one of those things. She's always saying that we (here in the US) work way too much. Even when we aren't 'at work', we often bring our work home with us...
We are all in debt up to our eyeballs and we don't dare lose that precious job or else...
And we work and work and work.
You know... If we are LUCKY we will make 80 trips around our Sun. That's it.
That's not much time, you know? The blink of an eye... Yet we spend MOST of that time either sleeping or WORKING. And we work more and more...
I heard in a movie (Before Sunrise) a fella say, "You never hear somebody say, 'You know, with the time I've saved using my word processor, I'm going to take off the next three months...'."
The more technology there is... the harder we work.
The more credit we assume... the harder we work.
All to soon our flame will flicker and die... and we will have worked a LOT... But will we have lived at all?
November 3, 2009 12:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely Ickyma. I read an interesting article in a Cleveland newspaper a number of years ago about a fellow who did quite well for himself running a "junk" business. Not an automobile junk yard - a Junk Business where he collected and sold used and old stuff. He said 'It's not what you do for a living that counts. But how you do your living." We put far too much emphasis on the what and not near enough on the how.
C
November 3, 2009 1:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
America's priorities have been seriously fucked up for a long, long time. Until we put people first again, they will continue to be fucked up. And when I say people I don't mean rich people, I mean common people. It's the worker bees that keep the beehive buzzing and without them there is no point in having a queen. The rich and powerful interests that run the nation forgot this simple point long ago.
November 3, 2009 1:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Until we put people first again"
When did we put people first, oleeb? We've always been comfortable having a large, inpoverished workforce that we could treat like quasi-slave labor. Just who we put in that group has fluctuated over the years, but America as a whole has been in thrall to laissez faire capitalism from its inception.
November 3, 2009 6:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm trying to think of a state, in all of human history, uncomfortable having a large, inpoverished workforce that could treated like quasi-slave labor./
Hmm... just one...
Nope.
November 3, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
True enough. But most of the western world has tried to make the working life one that doesn't grind a man (or woman) to, in the immortal words of Tony Soprano, "a little nub."
We seem to view that sentiment as a violation of our fundamental princples.
November 3, 2009 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think that was tempered considerably beginning with FDR's election in 32 on through 1980. During that period I think the common people were able to put themselves, if not first, then at least in a much better position than ever before. Right wing reactionaries have reversed all those gains.
November 3, 2009 11:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or, you could get a job, work as hard as you need to to keep it, not get caught up in the rat race, enjoy your life and your family, and not go into debt for things you don't need.
Nah, that would be too hard.
November 3, 2009 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was not saying one HAS to do it this way. Just that far too many people seem bent on doing it this way. Or seem to be pressured into it.
I myself do not live to work but work to live.
C
November 3, 2009 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
One could do that... but I argue you are what you eat.
What other metaphor could I use? Apples don't fall too far from their tree, maybe?
How about: Monkey See, Monkey Do?
The point is... kids learn from mom and dad...
My parents REALLY DID NOT prepare me very well... (I was raised by a pack of hippies, afterall).
My mom, sweet as she is, simply isn't a rocket surgeon. She had (still has) NO idea how to really do much of anything (except make false teeth, but she's been retired for many years now)... She did teach me to pinch pennies. But that's it. Just pinch 'em. Not why. Not how. No real instructions...
When I was 19 I was on my own... paid for my own college, rent, car, insurance, food, EVERYTHING! You name it. Being smart and hard working wasn't a problem. Being IGNORANT was.
My father, smart as he is, has NO CLUE how to manage money at all!!! He has no idea how that stuff works... but he can fix a Mass Spectrometer like nobody's business. He also advised me to "Go to school and get a good degree so you can get a job." He has the slave mentality if I ever saw it. He's bought into the whole thing.
The point is: I entered the world very unprepared and, consequently, found myself in debt.
Presently I own a business - for which I OWE a LOT of money to the bank... I own a house - for which I owe money... Same for cars...
Add it all up and it's a LOT of money.
I had to figure out how to manage all of this on my own...
MOST people I know don't understand anything about any of it... Most people I grew up with had the same level of understanding as did I.
It's one thing to say you could get a job, work as hard as you need to to keep it, not get caught up in the rat race, enjoy your life and your family, and not go into debt for things you don't need.... but for MOST it's really not that simple.
By the time we enter the world our programming/software is almost fatally flawed.
I believe that it will take generations of functioning, financially literate, and supportive families to produce lots of people who can just take your advice right out of the blocks.
In the meantime, the population will just grow and grow... and I worry that it's just not going to happen...
Except maybe these important lessons will be best taught through the "School of Hard Knocks".
November 3, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would not be to hard on you parents. I know of none who really know how to do the parenting thing very well. Some not at all. Mine did the best they could even though neither had very good teachers or roll models. If you have the unfortunate experiencing of being the "first born", you can find yourself being the recipient of all you parent's errors, such as I was. but at least you may learn how not to do it.But be that as it may.
It all depends on what one expects to get out of live and what ones values are. We learn these as we grow up sometimes emulating our teachers (parents)...sometimes doing the exact opposite.
I feel as though I have been fortunate in that I had the appropriate talent for the time I grew up. So was able to get into the fields I wished.
It is however all what you make of it and what kind of life you want. And to be able to bend with the changes.
C
November 3, 2009 4:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
What the hell kind of attitude is that, really?
Sure. Of course. One COULD do that... but that's neither here nor there.
Our economy RELIES upon debt and interest paid. That's the way it's set up. We have been encouraged from every direction (including and especially our "leaders") to do these things...
It's obvious that MOST people have not done as you've suggested. So you can sit on your high horse and say , "If you're like me, and you should be..." all you want...
But that simply doesn't help anything.
November 3, 2009 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point was not that the problem could simply be solved by people being "more like me", or more like anyone in particular. My point was that people make their own decisions and live their lives the way they want to live them.
Debt and interest are good things! People couldn't (as you note) start businesses, or in somecases, get educations or cars or houses, without them. People need to be as responsible with debt as they are with, say, cars. The difference is that the government restricts how you use your car, but not how much debt you can take on. This is because with your car, you can hurt other people, while overindulging in debt just hurts yourself (so it isn't any of the government's business).
People still need to be responsible. And they're not, because they're people. I just don't see why any of this is cause for a morality play.
November 3, 2009 3:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I raised my children (to the best of my ability,) I always offered the same advice when it came to "What should I be, Daddy?"
My reply: "Get a degree. Read profusely. As you mature, be sensitive to things that capture your interest. Follow some of those interests. If you find a subject that infatuates you, stay with it. Don't worry about financial sacrifice or discomfort. Perhaps, in time, you will love your work. From that point on, you "will" have succeeded far beyond 99% of all mortals. Salary and material wealth will become meaningless. If you are so blessed, wealth will follow. Wealth comes in many guises."
November 3, 2009 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think, really, Chris, that the cost of labor should double. Immediately.
The vast majority has not had any piece of the technology dividends. Really, we should all be working less hours, not more. I can't understand why none of us have been able to capitalize on this. When I entered the workforce, it took 3 or 4 people to do the work I do now. So rather than have 2 or 3 people out of work, shouldn't we all have 2 or 3 times more free time?
Isn't that what the benefit of technology IS?
It's time to start demanding reparations, and more leisure. We've all earned it a few times over.
November 3, 2009 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh I agree whole heartedly. The problem is that unless there is a change in the labor laws (not bloody likely), our demands would be met with us out of work and replaced by others who would do our jobs (badly) for less and not complain.
This whole thing of "Illegal Immigration" is just smoke. The truth is that a lot of these people would be more than willing to the same work for less and business knows this.
C
November 3, 2009 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
But there are more of us.
Yes. We. Can.
(Hoists pitchfork)
Do it for the kids, you know, the kids.
=D
November 3, 2009 10:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually...this is what Unions are for. Organize. Unfortunately those who see themselves as professional have int the past looked down on Unions as if they were somehow above such things. STUPID....ARROGANT....and why they get screwed.
C
November 4, 2009 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree about the wages, too!
Over morning coffee one day I was trying to explain the significance of inflation to my father... (This was a few years ago and, although I had the numbers at my disposal then, I don't remember them accurately now).
It boiled down to something like this: It took $4 or $5 at that time to EQUAL $1 in the year I was born! Life had gotten 5 X more expensive... The price of milk, bread, cars, houses, EVERYTHING... had gone up!
I asked him what he was making in 1970. He told me.
I asked him what he was making 'now'. He told me.
I said... hmmm... that's about 5 X as much as you were making in 1970.
It appears you haven't even gotten a raise.
He flipped me the bird and said, "Thanks! Just what I needed to start my day."
November 4, 2009 8:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unless the American people, and I mean all of them, get their act together and demand better of their government we're stuck with what we have. We all know just by what goes on in congress every day we are getting shafted. When a few senators from a few states with very small representative populations can control a piece of legislation like healthcare and have it end up the sham it is we have a problem. The only chance we have is for everybody to not pay their credit card bill for a couple of months or something similar. All the public polling can vastly favor some form of sensible and proper finacial regulation but as long as congress is corrupted by the flawed notion of corporate personhood and other legal mumbo jumbo, nothing will change. We are screwed only because we allow ourselves to be screwed. Not because it's impossible to have it be different. If people really understood that they can lawfully assert their rights in the face of injustice and that government can't do one thing about it then we can get what is right and proper.
November 4, 2009 12:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I once read a study (2004, I think) indicating that workers in the U.S. produce less overall with longer working hours than do our European counterparts with shorter working hours because, at some point, the gains expected with longer hours were reduced by the losses incurred as workers began to lose focus at about the ten-hour per day mark.
Sustaining long work hours does not magically translate into increased productivity. It does, however, make for a lot of fatigued, stressed, and therefore unhealthy employees. The upshot was that the French produced more while working less hours. I searched for the study, but haven't had much luck finding it.
However, I did come across this study from the International Labor Organization which has some interesting labor statistics (2003): http://www.ilo.org/wow/Articles/lang--en/WCMS_081311/index.htm
November 4, 2009 1:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
P.S. Consider also quality of life and shared reward (as in benefit to the common good)... I'd rather be in France. (For anyone suggesting that I move there... could happen... so save it).
November 4, 2009 1:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
But I flunked French in HS :-(
C
November 4, 2009 9:07 AM | Reply | Permalink