Guest Post by Joel Bowman
Irony: who would be without it?
A town planner stuck in a traffic jam… a “life coach” who lives in his parents’ basement… a hit song named “Ironic” that contains not a single instance of irony…
We live in the Age of Opposites, Dear Reader, where words and concepts are turned upside down and inside out somewhere along the journey from page to reality.
(Think Orwell’s Ministries of Peace, Truth, Plenty and Love.)
Which brings us to today, International Worker’s Day… celebrated the world over by people taking the day off work.
Long a pagan festival that marked the return of spring in the northern hemisphere, the May 1 date was co-opted by the “workers of the world” in the late 19th century, supposedly to commemorate the Haymarket affair in Chicago.
The incident (sometimes called the Haymarket Massacre or the Haymarket Riot) occurred when protestors and police clashed at a rally to support workers striking for an eight-hour workday.
At some point, a bomb was thrown by an unknown person… 8 police officers and at least 4 civilians were killed in the ensuing violence.
But let’s back up a little…
The eight-hour day movement (or 40-hour week movement) was ostensibly formed to fight “capitalist exploitation,” in which the “greedy” owners of the means of production forced children up chimneys and demanded long, grueling hours on the factory floor.
“Eight hours’ labor, Eight hours’ recreation, Eight hours’ rest.” So went the characteristically prescriptive chant.
None other than Marx himself regarded the movement as vital to workers’ health:
“By extending the working day, therefore, capitalist production…not only produces a deterioration of human labor power by robbing it of its normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity, but also produces the premature exhaustion and death of this labor power itself.”
The movement was designed, so the common narrative goes, to elevate workers’ dignity and improve their quality of life.
It seems like a noble enough goal. Who doesn’t want a better standard of living?
But take a look around the world today. Ask yourself what really improves quality of life?
Is it regulations that necessarily curtail productivity… or real economic progress?
Is it laws that forbid workers to earn a living as they see fit… or opportunity created by enterprising individuals?
Is it prices (including that of labor) set by bureaucrats… or by freely associating market participants?
And what about those poor little Dickensian characters, soot-faced and scrambling helplessly up the flue?
Self-appointed know-it-alls like Marx pretend to comprehend exactly what constitutes the “normal moral and physical conditions of development and activity”… for all people, all the time, and in all situations.
Having smugly presumed this knowledge, they go about grouping people into “classes,” which they then pit against one and other.
Owners vs. workers… proletariat vs. bourgeoisie… oppressor vs. oppressed.
But where does the world’s smallest minority – the individual – fit into this scheme?
What about the worker who wants to do a little overtime? Is he not allowed to “get ahead”? To make a little extra? To put away a few shillings so that he, one day, might own a modest piece of the “means of production” for himself?
And if he does finally manage to open a barbershop… or a butchery… or a landscaping business… is he not allowed to remain open more than 40 hours a week, after the competition has gone home?
Can he not employ those who would willingly work for prices below those set by his local politician? Must he go without the employee… while his employee remains without the work?
Why put a cap on this man’s aspirations? How does dissuading him from self-improvement do him any service at all? And how does retarding the market’s growth help it graduate from one of mere subsistence to one of plenty and even superabundance?
When children are pressed into the labor force today (and they are, the world over), it tends to be in poorer countries, in places that haven’t yet graduated to post-industrial levels of wealth.
The ultimate irony, of course, is that so-called “progressives” (correctly termed regressives) would have us return to agrarian subsistence farming tomorrow, if only they could.
Trouble is, it’s hard to take a day off to celebrate “workers’ rights” when you’re living hand to mouth.
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Also, a happy Beltane to one and all…! May you bonfires burn brightly.
end snark
Sounds like a song:
The Communists would have workers leave the dog-eat-dog world of so-called capitalist slavery into a real-life version of slavery under Communist rule. And where exactly does an individual, as mentioned in the song, come into play in a collective?
Now get your asses back to work, you animals.
work harder. millions of illegals on welfare are depending on you.
International Worker’s Day, eh? I can’t believe the library is open today. Seriously, this place closes several days a month for one bullshit holiday or another, real or imagined.
They closed a few weeks ago for something called Palm Sunday. WTF? Who closes over a damned tree?
On Monday — and this is true — I got snarky when I checked out a book.
— Me: “I’m surprised you’re open today.”
— Lib: “Why?”
— Me: “It’s St. Stanislaus Day in Poland today.
The librarian gave me sounds of silence ….. and a really nasty stare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7McpVPlidc
Another irony, during the Medieval period, the workers, majority agrarian, received more time off than we do today due to the enormous amounts of religious holidays and having to stop work at dusk, but the majority of those workers were poor and life was extremely hard. Today, the majority of Americans work between 35 and 40 hours, not much more than the peasants of the Medieval period, but many live from the lower to the upper middle class, yet they bitch they’re not earning enough money. Why? Because of greed and envy. Even the poor in America have luxuries the rich in the Medieval period would have died for. If you don’t think you are making enough money, there’s every opportunity to work overtime or to take on a second job for whatever you feel you need that extra money. But remember, just having adequate food, a decent place to live and warmth were the mainstays of life in the Medieval period, when feudalism ruled. Capitalism has brought prosperity to many people but many don’t want to give it the credit it deserves.
I’m not a pagan, but I actually like the idea of May Day on May 1st better than International Worker’s Day. At least it was a jolly affair.
Who on TBP can resist the LUSTY month of MAY?
I sat through CBA negotiations on the negotiation between Boeing, its Subcontractor, the Delaware Resource Group with a minority toehold (Boeing managers INVENTED the Native American Company to “keep” control of the contract. (2008, perhaps… My suspension came a few months later. The paperwork is locked away. Most is EYES only.)
I would swear in open court about some of the nasty union tricks I was actually INVOLVED in.
We had a “strike” vote and got 90% support (they should have thanked their PR person but instead, I later got suspended by management and left out to dry by the IAM. And can PROVE it with court documents. What UNION sends their Union Steward a letter saying they will NOT support that steward when she got suspended for insubordination to a former Major.
Silly me. When I saw a Federal Law that said a Union Steward was EQUAL to managers across a table, I thought it meant ME. Equal. That’s a funny word.
So, the Federal government sent down one of those professional negotiators, supposedly an objective mind to resolve the conflict.
He came into the Union meeting room at 7 a.m., hours before the Management showed up. We met, talked about the situation and each Union rep discussed our issues.
Meetings resumed at 9 a.m. A bit later, a knock at the door announced the arrival of the dude who was to help us resolve the conflict. We all MET him then and I’d been briefed to not mention we, the Union, had met him earlier.
Think that fucker was objective? I walked out of there with a five-dollar an hour raise for Editors! For Editors! LOL. No wonder they suspended me.
A whole bunch of “useful idiots”! Marx/Engels’ ideas were some of the worst ever in human history. And their implementations have always led to mass murder, hmmmm. Yet our socialist school systems shamelessly push this utopian canard.