Well, it had to get to this: tomorrow is my first day of work for 2011. The vacation is over; the holidays are long gone; everything is before us. I threw my last disposable quid at a lottery ticket on Saturday with the certain feeling that it would leave me in clover. Not for the first time my instincts failed me.
Anyway, what is a person without work? Can any of us really be alive without a purpose, without a role, an identity? While such rhetoric is for each to answer as best they might, I would ask, please, for a direct answer to why we're continually pressured to do more and more for relatively less. We turn up to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay, yet Capital continues to make more demands upon us all. The excuses for its demands are rehearsed time and again through a media which persuades us that our sacrifices will help the national economy, while our political masters exact from us the same by legislation.
Yes, the state separates our elected representatives from our interests and uses them to reconcile us all to capitalism. The irony is that capitalism cannot survive without our labour, although our labour would be just as useful to the nation without capitalism.
Have a prosperous and happy new year, y'all!
The imperfectly communicated reverie of a faulty autodidact. Please make his day more real by responding.
what is a person without work? Can any of us really be alive without a purpose, without a role, an identity?.....The ability to go out to work and feel your contributing to society is something we do not consciously realise we need till your out of work. it gives us a role an identity. We of course benefit from it financially but more importantly emotionally. Sense of self worth, pride, the enjoyment you get when you feel you have earned your day off rather than it just being another date on the calendar. The lottery winner lifestyle is something we all have dreamt of at some point however i wonder how would it affect our feelings of self worth (personal not financial). 24 hours is a long period of time to fill and im sure after a while the out of work millionaire would get bored a lot quicker than we think.
ReplyDeleteThe William Morris notion of work is that which you and I both realise is desirable.
ReplyDeleteI think that sudden wealth might be a curse for some, as you outline, Toni. However, with imagination and purpose, wealth is a useful tool to wield. There is much I'd do, once the initial euphoria had waned, depending on the amount.