Liberating workers

People feel trapped on a treadmill from which there is no escape. Yet, at the same time, workers are working longer and harder for less, the amount they are able to produce in an hour's labor is greater than ever before, and this productivity of labor continues to climb. Probably everyone except workaholics, for whom work is an obsession or a way to escape other problems of life -- would choose to work less. But most would say they can't afford to, or that their jobs don't allow them to slow down. In other words, our way of living and working isn't something we can, as individuals, choose for ourselves. We have to live and work pretty much the way the system forces us to. In the system as it exists today, working less does mean sacrificing things that are part of the standard of living we expect- and it doesn't only apply to luxuries or frills. People are working long hours just to hold onto their homes, keep their cars running and send their kids - or themselves - to college. Most workers desperately want more leisure time, but giving up the income means giving up the means with which to enjoy the extra time. In addition, being willing to do without things doesn't necessarily mean ending up with more time. For example, because the economic system favors private transportation over efficient mass transit, not having a car means spending a lot more time getting around to do everyday chores.

But under the profit system, the workers do not get the benefit of their effort; the owners of businesses do. Corporations introduce technology to reduce the time needed to produce the product or service. But rather than spread the saving to all their employees by having everyone work less for the same pay, they lay off a number of workers in order to pay less in total wages and thereby increase profits. By lessening the amount of labor needed to make a commodity, the owners can sell it for less and hold onto market share against their competitors, who are also driving down costs by displacing labor. To survive in the competitive market each company must keep cutting its costs of production, which means the workers must be sacrificed to keep the company afloat. But in addition to layoffs, labor costs can be cut by having the remaining workers work harder and longer. This is done through speedup, or through overtime, which at time-and-a-half is still cheaper than hiring additional workers. Or costs can be slashed through outright wage cuts, the cuts that force people to get second and third jobs to pay the bills.

This is the "secret" behind the irrational situation of having millions of people who are not allowed to work at all or only a few hours a week, at the same time millions of others have to work  more hours than they want. Both groups lose. But it's better to have a shrinking income than none at all, which is why so many workers accept ever-more unreasonable work-loads to hold onto their jobs.

Currently, it takes only a small portion of the work-force to produce all the manufactured goods consumed, an indication of the great productivity of industry. Other workers produce useful and needed services, such as education, transportation, health-care, etc. But there is still a large percentage of the work-force that is "surplus" relative to the number of productive jobs in the economy. These workers are absorbed in non-productive activity, jobs which are necessary for the functioning of the profit system, but which don't add to the real wealth of society. They work in the financial and insurance industries, in sales and marketing, in government bureaucracies. Besides this great waste of labor -- and all the skills and creativity these workers have -- much of the productive labor expended in industry is being wasted. Planned obsolescence to ensure a renewing market and profit flow means more labor and resources are used than would be necessary if goods were built to last. To keep the auto and oil companies in business, more cars have to be built and sold each year, which means more efficient systems of transportation have to be kept out. So, besides the unused and underused labor of the unemployed and partially employed, there is the mis-used labor of tens of millions of full-time workers.

If all the wasted labor were devoted to productive and socially-beneficial tasks, we could produce enough to provide everyone with a decent standard of living working only a fraction of the time we do today. By dividing the labor time needed in all industries equally among all who can, should and want to work, the workday for everyone could be drastically reduced. This is not a utopian dream. It is a simple recognition of the facts of industrial production, of the level of productivity technological development has achieved. But it is a hopeless dream to imagine that an equal distribution of work can be achieved within the capitalist economic system. As long as the technology is owned and controlled by a few, and as long as their profit remains the motive of production, labor will remain a mere "cost of production"-a cost to be lowered by throwing some workers out of jobs while pushing the remaining ones to exhaustion.

If workers want a secure and comfortable livelihood, if they want productive and rewarding jobs, if they want enough leisure time to develop their individual talents and satisfying relationships -- if this is what workers want, they need to organise a new social system to take democratic control of the industry and technology that makes it all possible.