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Economy
In reply to the discussion: Weekend Economists Get Syri-ous August 30-September 2, 2013 [View all]Demeter
(85,373 posts)65. Freedom From Jobs by ELLIOT SPERBER
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/30/freedom-from-jobs/
As the 50th anniversary of the 1963 march on Washington DC the March for Jobs and Freedom immortalized by Martin Luther Kings iconic I Have a Dream speech is celebrated and discussed around the country, it is important to note that though some gains have certainly been made over the past half-century toward a more inclusive, egalitarian society, in many respects particularly in economic matters there has been little or no progress whatsoever. Indeed, by certain measures equality has diminished considerably. Accompanying a minimum wage that, when adjusted for inflation, is lower than it was in 1968, and wages that except for the wealthy havent risen in decades, the economy has polarized wealth to a greater degree than ever, reducing the economic classes more and more to the two extremes of rich and poor, and squeezing the middle class into little more than a memory. This lack of change is observable in, among other places, the fact that its five decades later and people are still talking about jobs coveting jobs as though jobs were those necessities and luxuries that work is obtained to secure.
Notwithstanding this culture of works ideological claims to the contrary, however, jobs are less preconditions for freedom than impediments to freedoms concrete realization. Beyond consuming most of workers waking hours (consuming that which constitutes the precondition for freedom time), jobs also wreck peoples health, vitiating freedom in the sense of bodily movement as well. Moreover, that people are compelled to work a job in spite of the jobs actual function demonstrates the consanguinity of jobs and dependency, rather than in-dependency. Some may counter at this point that needing a job is just a natural, unavoidable fact that people must work to live. But the inordinately excessive amount of time that people devote to work in the US is less a natural fact than a cultural one.
Additionally, we shouldnt neglect to consider the fact that when people talk about good jobs they are not necessarily discussing the correction of some pressing problem, or providing some truly desired service, or satisfying some actual need. When people discuss good jobs they are primarily discussing ways to make money. If one can turn a solid profit selling known carcinogens, such employment will count as a good job in spite of the fact that an enterprise like that wreaks more objective harm than good.
Contrary to popular opinion, then, people dont actually need jobs; we work jobs in order to acquire money. And moneys another thing we dont in truth need we need those things that this socioeconomic system only provides in exchange for money: food, housing, clothing, etc. Jobs are but a middleman a means to acquire resources, not an end.
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As the 50th anniversary of the 1963 march on Washington DC the March for Jobs and Freedom immortalized by Martin Luther Kings iconic I Have a Dream speech is celebrated and discussed around the country, it is important to note that though some gains have certainly been made over the past half-century toward a more inclusive, egalitarian society, in many respects particularly in economic matters there has been little or no progress whatsoever. Indeed, by certain measures equality has diminished considerably. Accompanying a minimum wage that, when adjusted for inflation, is lower than it was in 1968, and wages that except for the wealthy havent risen in decades, the economy has polarized wealth to a greater degree than ever, reducing the economic classes more and more to the two extremes of rich and poor, and squeezing the middle class into little more than a memory. This lack of change is observable in, among other places, the fact that its five decades later and people are still talking about jobs coveting jobs as though jobs were those necessities and luxuries that work is obtained to secure.
Notwithstanding this culture of works ideological claims to the contrary, however, jobs are less preconditions for freedom than impediments to freedoms concrete realization. Beyond consuming most of workers waking hours (consuming that which constitutes the precondition for freedom time), jobs also wreck peoples health, vitiating freedom in the sense of bodily movement as well. Moreover, that people are compelled to work a job in spite of the jobs actual function demonstrates the consanguinity of jobs and dependency, rather than in-dependency. Some may counter at this point that needing a job is just a natural, unavoidable fact that people must work to live. But the inordinately excessive amount of time that people devote to work in the US is less a natural fact than a cultural one.
Additionally, we shouldnt neglect to consider the fact that when people talk about good jobs they are not necessarily discussing the correction of some pressing problem, or providing some truly desired service, or satisfying some actual need. When people discuss good jobs they are primarily discussing ways to make money. If one can turn a solid profit selling known carcinogens, such employment will count as a good job in spite of the fact that an enterprise like that wreaks more objective harm than good.
Contrary to popular opinion, then, people dont actually need jobs; we work jobs in order to acquire money. And moneys another thing we dont in truth need we need those things that this socioeconomic system only provides in exchange for money: food, housing, clothing, etc. Jobs are but a middleman a means to acquire resources, not an end.
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