Socialist Progressives
Related: About this forumDavid Graeber explains why the more your job helps others, the less you get paid
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Ive said this before, but I think one of the greatest ironies of history is how this all panned out when workers movements did manage to seize power. It was generally the classic anarchist constituenciesrecently proletarianized peasants and craftsmenwho rose up and made the great revolutions, whether in Russia or China or for that matter Algeria or Spainbut they always ended up with regimes run by socialists who accepted that labor was a virtue in itself and the purpose of labor was to create a consumer utopia. Of course they were completely incapable of providing such a consumer utopia. But what social benefit did they actually provide? Well, the biggest one, the one no one talks about, was guaranteed employment and job securitythe iron rice bowl, they called it in China, but it went by many names. You couldnt really get fired from your job. As a result you didnt really have to work very hard. So on paper they had eight- or nine-hour days but really everyone was working maybe four or five.
I have a lot of friends who grew up in the USSR, or Yugoslavia, who describe what it was like. You get up. You buy the paper. You go to work. You read the paper. Then maybe a little work, and a long lunch, including a visit to the public bath If you think about it in that light, it makes the achievements of the socialist bloc seem pretty impressive: a country like Russia managed to go from a backwater to a major world power with everyone working maybe on average four or five hours a day. But the problem is they couldnt take credit for it. They had to pretend it was a problem, the problem of absenteeism, or whatever, because of course work was considered the ultimate moral virtue. They couldnt take credit for the great social benefit they actually provided. Which is, incidentally, the reason that workers in socialist countries had no idea what they were getting into when they accepted the idea of introducing capitalist-style work discipline. What, we have to ask permission to go to the bathroom? It seemed just as totalitarian to them as accepting a Soviet-style police state would have been to us.
That ambivalence in the heart of the workers movement remains. Growing up in a lefty, working class family, I felt it all the time. On the one hand, theres this ideological imperative to validate work as virtue in itself. Which is constantly being reinforced by the larger society. On the other hand, theres the reality that most work is obviously stupid, degrading, unnecessary, and the feeling that it is best avoided whenever possible. But it makes it very difficult to organize, as workers, against work.
As usual, a thoughtful and entertaining interview with Graeber.
Doctor_J
(36,392 posts)"everything they told us about communism was false; everything they told us about capitalism was true".
We are now as productive as we've ever been as a society. Yet we have enormous unemployment, underemployment, and working poor. This is obviously a paradox. As my one right-wing uncle says, "How can unemployment ever drop below 4%? That would mean that even retarded people have jobs".
The answer to this is really, really simple of course, in principle. You take the profitization model off of the essentials including education, health care, and pensions. Then institute living wage laws together with job sharing and replace the 40-hr work week with a 30-hr work week. This arrangement would still allow the fat cats to get rich.
But, as Graeber says, even those who would benefit the most from such a system would shy away from fighting for it.
Demeter
(85,373 posts)what is the point of working to the point of exhaustion, if not death? You don't get to enjoy it, your family sure doesn't, the duties of a citizen regarding community and politics are unfulfilled.
The only one who benefits from such an arrangement is the business owner and his banker.
However, I cannot begin to imagine how the US could break the wage slavery, because our government is bought and paid for by the owners and their bankers. Mostly, the bankers, actually. Only a lucky few owners own more than massive debt.
postulater
(5,075 posts)I just got back from Kohl's. I bought four polo shirts made in Indonesia, Vietnam, and Guatemala. And two pair of Levis, same size and model, one made in Egypt, one made in Lesotho. I couldn't find any made in the US. Spent less than $100.
I'm happy to have affordable clothes but something is just wrong with this.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)Their business model is to sell the highest margins on cheap goods, so paying USA wages is impossible. There are many small companies that are Made in the USA, but often you can only buy them on the internet. Their markups are not so high so they can't afford to sell wholesale. One company that's popular with men is Betabrand where most of their stuff is made in San Francisco. There are many others. Most textiles are no longer milled in the US, so they can't say Made in the USA, but you can look for things manufactured here.
Also, check Etsy as there are many great craftspeople and designers who are direct selling on there. Amazing stuff and you can customize it if you like. You just have to look for quality and you will find it.
Laffy Kat
(16,376 posts)I see how hard the nurses (mostly LPNs) and CNAs work and they get paid horribly. Not only do they work hard they are passionately devoted to their patients, in some sense they love them. And on top of hard work and lousy pay, management is constantly asking the staff to do more, faster, with less. I wish everyone could see what I do.
yallerdawg
(16,104 posts)What a bill of goods we have been sold all of our lives.
One of the great paradoxes of capitalism is when a society produces the most goods and creates the most wealth, inevitably people still live in poverty and hunger. Their worth is determined by their functioning as just another piece of machinery. If you don't produce, you have no value and are discarded.
As we separate into the final 2 distinct classes, the haves and the have not's, the bosses and the workers -- yes, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat! -- then we will move collectively into the end of capitalism as the people take back their humanity.