Why Work?

Workers are in the majority and their numbers could bring the system to its knees. By infusing religion and patriotism into the issues that confront our fellow-workers the owning class can channel workers' frustration over declining wages and benefits into diversionary dead-ends. Using nationalism and creed as weapons are part and parcel of the owning class's war against workers. It creates a smokescreen for the plutocrats and oligarchs in their financial maneuvers. Politicians will continue to provide empty promises and temporary band-aid solutions that can only continue this shameless wealth and needless poverty. Only an economy that is owned and democratically managed by the workers who produce all the wealth can deliver lasting prosperity and economic security for all.

Many people think that the word capital is just another word for "money" or "wealth." For instance, a person might say something like, "I don't have enough capital to buy a new car." But capital is not just money. In fact, capital doesn't need to be money at all. Capital is wealth that its holder uses to get more wealth. If a company takes a certain amount of its money, its assets, and buys a piece of machinery, has its capital gone down? No. The new machinery has replaced the money as part of its capital. But machinery is no more capital all by itself than money is. My car is machinery, but it's not capital. The thing that makes the machinery a company buys into capital is its relation to labor, the workers who operate the machinery. When the workers go to work, they use the machinery to make things. When those things are sold, they are sold for a certain value, all of which has been created by the workers. But the workers don't get all the value their labor adds to the things they make. If they did, there would be no money value for the owner of the capital, no profit. jnIt's this social relationship of owners and workers, the relationship that says the workers have to fork over part of the value they produce to the owners as the condition for being allowed to work, that makes wealth into capital.

Which brings us to the next question. Just what is "work?"

If I sit at a computer screen and type in data for eight hours, I put out a certain amount of effort, and in return I am paid. But what of a thief, who may put out a lot more physical effort to break into my house and steal my possessions? He takes the stuff to a fence and sells it, so he is getting paid for putting out effort just as I am. The difference, of course, is that his effort is not work that is useful and constructive for society. He is merely a parasite, living off my work.

Now let's look at another species of parasite, the CEO of a major company. Let's say that I, Joe Public , working at my $10-an-hour job, but must work overtime and put in 50 or 60 hour weeks in order to pay rent on my apartment, the payment on my car and my food and utility bills, plus an occasional night out or some new clothes. Compare that with the CEO who pulls in a million dollars or more per year in salary, plus half a million or so worth of stock options, etc., not to mention returns from other investments outside the company he works for. He also spends maybe 60 hours a week -- doing what? Well, first of all, he is busy trying to increase market share for his company. That means he is trying to replace another company's product with his company's in your shopping basket. Does this effort increase society's quality of life? Probably not. When one company, say Pepsi, succeeds in getting people to buy it instead of Coke, their production goes up and they may hire more people. But Coke's production goes down and they lay people off. The net number soft drinks produced may stay the same. The price for the consumer may also stay roughly the same, dropping when Pepsi is under-selling Coke and rising again later, after Pepsi's market share has grown, to help offset the cost of the nationwide advertising campaign. That's what the "work" of CEOs adds up to -  stealing each other's profits.

Second, the CEO is trying to increase profits by cutting costs. He can't do a whole lot about the costs of the raw materials except if he is retail food supermarkets and can bully farmers and growers his company uses. But he can do quite a bit about what you, the employees, cost. He can make you work harder with fewer breaks and by speeding up the machines, and he can figure out how to delay or minimize your pay rises or even cut your pay. All of this "work" done by the CEO increases profits but creates no new useful articles for society. And just because the CEO puts out some wasted effort, he thinks that entitles him to get paid for my work as well.

At least the burglar who broke into my house to rob me needs the money for food, or maybe he steals because he has to finance a drug or alcohol problem. What's the CEO's excuse? He has none. Not only does he make me work to produce what he then steals, he also thinks I should thank him for "giving" me a job. If anyone's doing the giving, it's me, the worker, Joe Public, the chump. Only my relatively weak position- legally, financially and socially -- keeps me from claiming the full value of what I produce and from telling Mr. CEO and all the wealthy capitalist shareholders he "works" for to take a hike and get a real job. But once we as workers have wised up to the game and get ourselves organized, we will be able to get these welfare bums of our backs.

A great struggle lies ahead of us. Whether we welcome it or fear it or deny it or want to avoid it, it will come, because the economic laws of the capitalist system will force it on us. Let's hope it ends in a fairer reconstitution and reconstruction of society rather than the common ruin of us all.