EFCA

Two Hawaiian men plead
guilty to stealing and
eating man’s pet puppy.

Too many years of “free-market capitalism” seems to have spawned a managerial and upper class in the United States that truly believes greed is good and the proletariat exists solely for the purpose of exploitation. How else can one explain the passionate and unceasing objection on the part of some to the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)? I mean, with the history of the worst of the sweat shops behind us, our knowledge of the problems associated with the Industrial Revolution, the absolutely gruesome images of poverty in the 19th century, the labor wars of the late 20th century, the insights of Marx and other political philosophers, the rise of Schools of Business and Management, and so on, you might think people would know better than to try to continue to keep the proletariat in chains. Given the fact that wages for ordinary working people have actually declined in recent years, at the same time the salaries and bonuses for management have skyrocketed as never before, it is impossible to see any justification for the opposition to EFCA other than just plain naked greed. And not only is this opposition greedy, it is also stupid. Even Henry Ford, that paragon of capitalism, realized that you had to pay your workers at least well enough so they could buy your product. While it is true that corporations can find cheaper labor overseas, resulting in unemployment at home, where are these unemployed workers going to find the money to buy anything, thus resulting in a recession or worse? This seems to be about where we are at the moment.

Not only is opposition to EFCA greedy and stupid, it is also, in my opinion, un-American, in that it works directly against the most basic values as stated in our founding documents: “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” “all men are created equal,” “liberty and justice for all,” and so on. This is so because under this (largely mythical) free-market capitalism, everything has to be treated as a commodity, including labor. Thus those men (and women) who must work for a living are reduced simply to commodities. But as Karl Polanyi so insightfully observed, labor is not truly a commodity, because labor is another word for human behavior. If you deny someone the fruits of their labor entirely, or force them to labor for excessively unjust rewards, you are clearly depriving them of many of their rights, and certainly standing in the way of their pursuit of happiness (unless they are masochistically inclined to a life of unending and unrewarding labor).

One does not have to be a socialist or communist to understand that in a fair and just society everyone should be entitled to be fairly paid for their labor and talent. This does not mean everyone should receive the same as everyone else, some people work harder than others, some are more talented than others, some more creative and active, and so on. Such people should be rewarded for their superior efforts. But no one should be denied opportunities to do their best, destined by birth or circumstance to live out their lives in “quiet desperation,” hungry and miserable, wage slaves in a system designed to keep them that way forever. There is something fundamentally wrong with a society where the disparity between rich and poor is as great as it is in our current country. This is wrong, and no philosophy of Social Darwinism or free-market capitalism can make it right. Greed and its attendant short-sightedness and exploitation are not building blocks for a successful, satisfying, and continuing culture. Just look around and listen, the sounds and sights of crumbling are everywhere. When the President of the U.S. is criticized for putting mustard on his cheeseburger, you know the end is probably in sight, or at least it ought to be.

LKBIQ:
“Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.”
Karl Marx

TILT: There is evidence that camelina was grown in Europe 3,000 years ago.