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