Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotation Of The Week 371

Many may those summer mornings be
when with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber, and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of every kind--

as many sensual perfumes as you can.
from
Ithaca
C.P. Cavafy

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 369-370

If the weavers' shuttles were to weave of themselves -- then there would be no need either of apprentices for the master craftsmen or of slaves for the lords.
Aristotle
Atheniensium Republica

Looms… have taken on a life of their own. Today, in the industrialized world, a textile mill is a clean workspace dominated by huge, computer-controlled Dobby and Jacquard looms. The working of the looms are entirely enclosed. This is just as well, as compressed air shoots the laser-guided shuttles through the warp at machine-gun speeds—and very little in the entire process is touched by human hands.
Perfect Machines: The Loom
CBC IDEAS

Jobs Jobs Jobs!

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 367, 368

…"individuals' full development" not only creates wealth but "is wealth once wealth has been stripped of its limited bourgeois form". Marx, for whom "free time" was an index of wealth, since it was time "for leisure and superior activities" could not predict that "free time" would be colonized by leisure industries and that the productivist frenzy would find its corollary in consumption frenzy, including consumption of commodified leisure. But it hardly matters. What's important is that the time individuals spend "working" on their "full development" is not work time for the simple reason that "self-development work" is not work in the economic sense: it does not produce "value" in the economic sense, that it does not produce anything salable, nothing that is designed to be exchanged for something else. Full self-development and wholly developed individuals are not commodities.
Andre Gorz

Theorizing Deliverance from the Labor- and Commodity-Centered Society

The people that we've elected, and those entrusted with this nation's corporate and financial assets, better get it together fast because soon those questions will be resonating a million times over, and the noise from the masses may well topple the walls surrounding their gated communities and country clubs and rattle their gilded cages. We were told, Work hard, play by the rules, and pay your taxes and you will get ahead--you will have the so-called American Dream. That's a damn lie, and I for one am mad as hell about it. God help those in charge should I and the millions of other people like me (our numbers seem to be growing exponentially by the day) reach a point of desperation and no return. There will be a revolution and no redemption for the people who caused this mess.
Joris B. Rapelje

Clinton Township, Mich.
The Nation,
Jobless in America

Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 354-356

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
Tom Robbins











The businessman [sic] is interested in making money; the machine knows no end except making goods. The businessman achieved his end not by working within the framework of the social
machine, but conspiring against it. His function was not to help make goods, but to cause breakdowns in the regular flow of output, so that values would fluctuate, and he could capitalize on the confusion to reap a profit.

On top of the machine-like dependability of the actual production apparatus in the world, the businessmen built a superstructure of credit, loans, and make-believe capitalizations. ...it was
the constant disturbing, undoing, even conscious misdirecting of the efforts of society to provision itself.
Robert L. Heilbroner,
The Worldly Philosophers
AA



Now, just think of this: A basic income policy can change that for the first time in our history. It can ensure every Canadian has a living – regardless of age, gender, region or income level. It can mean that we live up to our commitment to the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights: " ... everyone has a right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself [sic] and his family ..."

But don't be alarmed that this would really be one big boondoggle. The program will be self-funding through the tax system, this basic income being added to whatever else a person is receiving as salary, wages, pension, dividends or anything else.

So, before you throw your hands up in amazement that anything as "far out" as this can be recommended by otherwise rational people, just face one fact: In principle, we are already doing this with one segment of the population. All Canadians, aged 65 and over, are entitled to the Old Age Security Pension. And it's taxable so that seniors receiving above a certain income can find all or part of it "clawed back." If that works with part of society, what makes it unworkable with the rest?
…
…this method can be more efficient than what we are doing. Not only can it rid Canada of poverty, it can do it in a cost-effective way because it can require far less administration than the multitude of social work-driven programs – plus their professional fundraisers – we now pay for.

… it will actually add to the economy because the money people receive will be spent on goods and services that keep Canadians working. If you think that's "voodoo economics," just ask why just last week, the U.S. Congress broke all legislative speed records to approve a multi-billion dollar program to revive the economy and avert a recession. That's what a Canadian basic income policy would do all year, every year.
An income for all Canadians
Reginald Stackhouse
Toronto Star
Feb 17, 2008