Anti Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 755-757

For corporate interests in the United States, the wageless recovery is excellent news, of course. They’re spending less on labor at the same time they get to pick and choose between highly qualified job applicants, thanks to the huge numbers of unemployed people seeking work in a highly competitive market. Soft market conditions also make it easier to cut benefits, suppress unions, and exploit workers, because the ones who speak up can be easily exchanged for those who won’t.
Frozen Out: Is Congress About to Slash Heating Assistance Funds Just as Temperatures Plummet?
s. e. smith
AlterNet

The pipeline, known as Keystone XL, would be built by a Canadian company to carry heavy crude oil 1,700 miles from the tar sands in northern Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast.
…
…the only independent study, conducted by Cornell University’s Global Labor Institute, concludes that it may generate no more than 50 permanent jobs when the work is done.
Keystone Claptrap
Editorial
New York Times
Published: December 12, 2011

The logic of “production” goes like this:

If the world requires a certain amount of something, then there are two choices:

1. some number of people work ALL of the time to produce the desired amount, or
2. some larger number of people work PART of the time to produce the desired amount.

Ah, but,
the logic of “consumption” is quite different, and goes like this:

1. we need to employ people all the time,
2. such employment produces a surplus,
3. people need to be convinced to purchase the surplus through marketing and advertising,
4. the surplus has to be quickly converted to waste, so people will purchase again,
5. this is accomplished by denying basic needs to everyone so that they have to work in order to consume.

The first story is a recipe for a civilization that spends some of its time meeting its obligations to society and the rest of its time in pursuit of leisure and other interests and projects. The second story is a recipe for a civilization with waste, pollution, and mass slavery.
Unemployment Is The Cure
Paul Hartzog
21st September 2011