Jack Saturday

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations 241-243

My job sucks!!!
Anyone else have a shitty ass job? I've been sitting in one room for 11 hours now, and I got a 5 min piss break about halfway through. My bosses suck, I work more in ONE DAY than those assholes work in two weeks.

And yes.. be thankful i have a job right...but still, yall try sitting in a chair for 11 hours and not getting to leave but once for 5 min... Most days, i get to leave for pissing and 10 min lunch break, but still, working 12 hour days sucks balls. kk.. done venting..
Jeenis
July 30, 2008









AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Despite the dysfunctionality of the work ethic it continues to be promoted and praised, accepted and acquiesced to. It is one of the least challenged aspects of industrial culture. Yet it is based on myths and fallacies which provide legitimacy for gross social inequalities. If we are to protect the planet and our social health we need to find new ways of judging and valuing each other which are not work and income dependent.
Sharon Beder,
The Promotion of a Secular Work Ethic



The evidence shows that there is one segment of the population that has more money than it can spend and another that has less than it needs. Obviously the guaranteed annual wage must be supported by people who have more than they can use. What is the point of amassing an enormous personal fortune when you can't take it with you?

Treason! You're saying a man [sic] shouldn't be able to save and provide for the future comfort of his children and grandchildren! That's the whole basis of our incentive system.

But should it be? Does an athlete pass on his long-distance track medals for his [sic] son to wear? Does the Nobel Prize also go to the grandchildren of the recipients? More to the point, if the country provides basic security - free education, medical care, and a guaranteed wage - to all as a right, what is the point of leaving large sums behind to grandchildren yet unborn?

But you're killing incentive! What will men [sic] work for if they aren't given the opportunity to accumulate a substantial share of this world's goods?

Yes: the New Democracy would kill incentive in misers. If a man's [sic] goal in life is purely and simply the hoarding of large sums of money, there'll be less incentive for him to do that. But it is my observation that, after a certain economic level is reached, the accumulation of money is not the chief incentive for most people. It never has been for those outside the business world, unless they are poor - the artists, teachers, writers, architects, yes, and to a large extent the doctors and engineers and others. (The very businessmen who keep talking about incentives are also quoted in the popular magazine profiles as saying they don't really care about the money; they work for the fun of it.) Money is certainly a status symbol; of that we are aware. As long as it is the criterion by which achievement is judged it will continue to be. But what is wrong with seeking better status symbols?

These arguments apply at the other end of the economic scale. Will a guaranteed annual wage kill incentive among the poor? If a man is given a certain amount of security, won't he quit working? Exactly the same contention could be made about the sons of the wealthy who are left large fortunes. Yet the evidence suggests that, given economic freedom, people will generally choose to do that which interests them most. It is up to society to see that these interests are widened and that too requires investment.
Pierre Berton,
The Smug Minority
, pp. 117-118

2 Comments:

  • However humanely wrapped, this whole 'guaranteed wage' idea is simply robbing peter to pay paul.

    After all, the government doesn't raise money from thin air (US Federal Reserve doesn't count)Taxes will have to be levied, and taxes are evil (necessary though!). This makes all your talk of 'incentives' pointless, as the govt just muscles in on private money.

    I am of the opinion that any money, legally made, should not be subject to justification of use. If i provide a useful product, pay my costs, and horde my profits, so what? It's not the wisest thing to do, but it is the fruit of my labor....
    Besides, this scheme will be vulnerable to official shenanigans, as well as backdoor deals.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 5:09 AM  

  • Anonymous wrote: However humanely wrapped, this whole 'guaranteed wage' idea is simply robbing peter to pay paul.

    Jack: Stick ‘em up, Peter! Go Robin Hood! Peter (the super-rich) has been robbing Paul (the rest of us) for a very long time now. One of the more blatant heists happening right now in the USA.

    Wall street has been paying itself in bonuses more than the world’s aid for 800 MILLION poor victims in sub-Saharan Africa (Sachs, 2008).

    Anonymous: After all, the government doesn't raise money from thin air (US Federal Reserve doesn't count)

    Jack: Why doesn’t the Federal Reserve count?
    If banking was a non-profit service to society, it would disperse its interest to the society. If government printed money, it wouldn't have to rob the people to pay the bankers.

    Anonymous: Taxes will have to be levied, and taxes are evil (necessary though!).

    Jack: Taxes are already levied, are they not? Where is the benefit?
    Up til now, taxes have been used to pay interest to private bankers, run wars for profiteers, and fund research and development so that companies can automate and cut workers, rather than ensure food, clothing, shelter, and decent infrastructure for people.

    25% of major U.S. corporations currently pay NO federal income tax. … If we raise the corporate income tax back to the level of the 1950s, that gives us an extra $500 billion.
    (Michael Moore, 1/10/08)

    Anonymous: This makes all your talk of 'incentives' pointless, as the govt just muscles in on private money.

    Jack: The word “incentive” has been used to refer to carrots and sticks, both for the purpose of getting people to do what they don’t like doing. Capitalist apologists are always saying “we need to pay CEOs astronomical bonuses in order to draw good people” (as we have learned, they are saints).

    Anonymous: I am of the opinion that any money, legally made, should not be subject to justification of use.

    Jack: Well, let it be subject to the necessary evil you mention, so that we can have a decent society and planet. Here’s the rub, friend: until everyone is decently provided for, and ecosystems are healthily reviving, as a society we tax your profits progressively (after a certain point). This is a strong incentive for you to hustle the process, so that we can then allow you to have more. First we feed the kids, then you can get on with pigging out.

    Anonymous: If i provide a useful product, pay my costs, and horde my profits, so what?

    Jack: No problem, as long as everyone is decently fed and sheltered, within
    decent infrastructure, the earth replenished and stewarded well. Maybe we’ll let you hoard $10 million, the dizzying dream of Wal-Mart slaves in lottery ticket lineups.

    Anonymous: It's not the wisest thing to do, but it is the fruit of my labor....

    Jack: Not your employees’ labor or the heritage of technology? Done without the grid, or highways, or telephone systems? Without the inventors and laborers of history who brought you all the modern tools, and the know-how of millennia?

    Anonymous: Besides, this scheme will be vulnerable to official shenanigans, as well as backdoor deals.

    Jack: Omigod! Wouldn’t want that to happen! Better keep things as they are, open, honest and above board. The millions in destitution, the homeless, the sick, the starving, they are just collateral damage in the constant fight to protect your freedom to hoard more than you could ever spend.


    "How many men [sic] ever went to a barbecue, and would let one man take off the table what’s intended for nine-tenths of the people to eat? The only way you’ll ever be able to feed the balance of the people is to make that man come back and bring back some of that grub he ain’t got no business with.

    Now how are you going to feed the balance of the people? What’s Morgan and Baruch and Rockefeller and Mellon going to do with all that grub? They can’t eat it, they can’t wear the clothes, they can't live in the houses. Give ‘em a yacht! Give ‘em a palace! Send ‘em to Reno and give ‘em a new wife when they want it, if that’s what they want.

    "But when they’ve got everything on the God’s living earth that they can eat and they can wear and they can live in, and all that their children can live and wear and eat, and all their children’s children can use, then we’ve got to call Mr. Morgan and Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Mellon back, and say “Come back here. Put that stuff back on this table here, that you took away from here, that you don’t need.”
    Huey P. Long,
    Governor of Louisiana
    1934

    By Blogger Jack Saturday, at 12:35 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home