Working Together

Work is not necessarily demeaning.  And working for wages, disproportionately low, in regards to what a person produces, or maintains, is not by itself the root of our economic injustice.  We need to evolve, as anarchists, an understanding of our repressive culture which is not limited to monetary equality.

Collectivist work ideals would create an environment in which labor was valued as much as ownership.  This is important.  But it is important, not because workers need more money, and not because people have to over exert themselves over the course of a day’s labor.  Tough work—and making the sacrifices necessary, to be working—are themselves valuable resources for our society to be successful.

What we have in the twenty-first century is an economic structure which has defiled our social-culture.  Ownership—and technology—are more valued as a basis for the function of our society than is the basic needs of the masses.  Billions of dollars are being spent towards better utilizing technologies while there are people who are not working—and, as a result, cannot meet their own basic needs. 

People—and work itself—have gone the way of the simple nail; although the nail is a simple invention, it was once, of tremendous value.  At one time, a nail was considered so valuable that people burned down houses to retrieve the nails they were built with.  But back then nails were made by hand; and people who made nails were skilled craftsmen; their work was important to the function of their community. 

No longer is the work which is done to make nails restricted to a person who has knowledge or skill.  Nails are made by machines.  And most other things which are manufactured are as well manufactured without the need for skilled workers. 

Ironically, the nail was a beginning in the drive of mankind to be more adapted living in a larger—more structured, society.  But what has happened is that we have become so adapted to a social structure which is so complex that the simple needs of society have been brushed aside.  Globalization, from a boom in technology, which allows us to source work from all over the world, has uprooted our economic ties to our local communities.

I find most critiques of work politics to be bourgeois—buffeted by privilege—idyllic—and self-righteous.  I do not think that my work should get financial returns on par with that of ownership of the company which I work for.  I do not think that having to bust my ass to make ends meet is an injustice.   Very many workers do not need more money to get by; but we need as a society to step back away from the value misconception that more is necessarily better.

As we have grown more complex our society, too, has become less intimately connected with the needs of community—and of the individual.  Things which were once of great value—like workers—like nails—have become nothing more than commodities.  Culture has been supplanted by excess. Anarchy has to stand for a social structure which gives greater value to the contribution of useful work, but not necessarily with greater financial returns.  More money, in exchange for physical labor, will not negate the dehumanization of our economic system.