An article on the "humiliation of work"

[mercure_in_retrograde]

The Humiliation of Work

Imagine a farm with ten workers on it. To sustain themselves, each worker has to work 5 days per week. Now let’s say that through mechanical inventions, the efficiency of the farm has so incr…

maartenschumacher.wordpress.com

It's a good commentary on work under capitalism and the commodification of humans in general.
I also think that capitalism chips away at people's individuality to make them fall in line (you can't wear your own style of clothing at work and have to tone it down if your style is too flamboyant, stuff like that). But I'm less pessimistic than the author and do believe everyone is unique and can bring something different to the table.

That being said, I don't think blaming everything on institutions as if they were living entities is totally fair. Yes, 1% of the world population owns half of the world's wealth. But the 99% are greater in number and are complying to their rules.

Anyway, would love to hear if any of you has something interesting to add to this,

 

[threepwood]

Hi,

Would they divide the amount of work amongst themselves, so that each would have to work only one day per week? Or would two workers do all the work and keep all of the food, while the other eight have to beg for scraps?
Although the former would make more sense to me, the latter is what’s being practiced all over the world today.

From what I've witnessed, that's not what is happening.
Instead of working less, people tend to spend more. And if that scenario describes a family, it would totally make sense, if they would work otherwise, instead of just doing nothing. Maybe they would send one to get an education or something...

But I get your (or his) point.

The problem is, you make it worse, if you authorize your government (or any institution) to regulate things in order to make it fair. Or to pay for "common causes". This will inevitably increase the necessary work for everybody. As long as humanity cant deal with differences (in regards to income or otherwise), without feeling the need to equalize everything, we are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over again.
In a free society it would be possible to live in a closed community where you can have everything in common, like the Amish or a family. But if you legalize theft, you will sooner or later wake up with an overpriced and useless bureaucracy, that only serves itself.

Kind regards,
threepwood