Work

[K-Dog]

As fossil fuels replaced human and animal labor, society collected a lot of people that did not do useful work.  I'll define useful work as contributing to the collective effort.  Things like putting food on the table or a roof over your head.  Necessary things.

The useless eaters I describe are both good and bad, lazy and inspired, they are all kinds of people, and they are all around you.  I make no no judgement here.  Easy energy allowed it to happen.  People who look and act normal, but who evolved to have no idea how food gets on the table or how the roof came to be are common.  Belief in magic is a thing.

Now everything is costing more.  The magic is missing.  Easy energy is going away and there is going to be a need for human labor to replace the useful work fossil fuels did.  But there is a problem.  Americans don't know the difference between useful work and other work that pays money.  And affluence killed American labor.

The meme that 'there is more to life than work' gave people who put food on the table a bad name.  The game of life became how to tap into the easy energy flow and get $$ from it.  $$ from someone else's labor.  It all made sense when technology and the ignorance of ignoring that oil won't last forever was easy to do.  There was less need for useful work.  Fossil fuels replaced human labor. The fantasy that 'there is more to life than work' was born.

Thinking there are more important things than work has deep roots.  Get off the farm and move to the city.  Live the high life.  Surf the wave, ride the tide.  Exploit the labor of somebody.  Let the black liquid make you forget about the past.

Americans think May Day has something to do with Russia and Communism.  Russia does celebrate the defeat of Nazi Germany in May, but May day is celebrated by workers movements all over the world.  May day is forgotten American history.  The Haymarket riot - bombing - whatever you want to call what happened in Chicago in 1886 is the actual reason May Day exists. 

The Haymarket affair was a major turning point in the history of the American labor movement.  The aftermath began a push for an 8 hour work day. 

There was a bombing at an event and police officers were killed.  The speakers at the event were tried for the murders of the police officers though they had no involvement with the bombing.  Four were convicted and hung.  George Engel, Adolph Fischer, Albert Parsons, and August Spies.  Another man committed suicide in his cell the day before being executed by biting into a smuggled blasting cap that blew half his face off but did not kill him for six hours.  Two death sentences were commuted to life in prison.  The condemned did not die immediately when they were hung.  They were strangled to death slowly.

People were worked like they were slaves before easy energy.  An American labor movement forced the necessity of a new deal a few decades after Haymarket.  Ultimately the veterans of WWII were the beneficiaries of the sacrifice and work of an American labor movement who forced decent hours and wages.

Generations went by thinking life was good and the work of getting good work was done.  But all the while affluence and easy energy hid an erosion of labor gains that labor unions had given to America.  A history now forgotten.  Affluence made America forget the past.  A lot of people in America think only stupid people work.  It is true.  You know it.

Some more sane advocate for a work-life balance.  I'll agree with that.  And those physically able to work, and who do not know how, need to learn I'll add.  Because we are all in this together if you want to know why.  I fear the avoidance of work has become fashionable.

I don't agree with everything Vlad Bunea says in this video, but change is going to happen.  Do we have a say-so in how the change works out?  Do we know the change we want?  The Haymarket affair makes me think Vlad has his head in the clouds.  Can people really get off the couch?