Desire, Class War and Business
by Michael Robin Cooke on Jul.05, 2009, under Kitschchaos
“People won’t work unless they are hungry!”
That’s almost the statement defining class warfare in my opinion. Business people will say this casually without thinking twice, believing it to be true. Even very progressive business people. It’s a conclusion that’s built into capitalism.
And here’s the rub, it really is roughly accurate. The sons and daughters of privilege, will they work at a chicken slaughtering plant for minimum wage? The threat of illegal immigration, is that they may need the job more than we do.
But, there’s more than one way to keep an employee hungry. The world of commission sales for example – the better a salesman does, the more money the salesman makes. The world of sales keeps employees hungry with greed.
And this latter model is duplicated to a lesser degree, but more profoundly, any time a business is employee owned.
Noam Chomsky, when I spotted a presentation he made that was televised on free Speech TV, he explains that prior to the industrial revolution, the idea of working for a salary is understood as being comparable to being a slave, the distinction being that the employee is only a slave on a temporary basis.
If you can let go of the baggage of bundling self respect with your salary – it’s clear that if a company is pulling in greater profits from your hard work but your pay stays the same, something akin to exploitation is concrete and real.
I think this is how some wealthy people come to assume a prejudice against the working class – when they put in effort and the effort creates wealth, they benefit correspondingly. The working class puts in effort that will never do better than maintain an economic status quo, no matter the wealth they produce. Thereby the working class is second class in a real way.
So the point is that most of us are working class, we want more but we are working class. Those of us that are working at all that is. If we are going to constantly improve our station in life we have to realize the game of employment in a capitalist system is designed to stop us. We can’t allow ourselves to think of improvement being that better job.
A job is enslavement if you don’t use it as a means to grow.
The game of capitalism is to run a business, your own business. The great successes in life, run their own businesses. And if you want to grow your business with hungry employees, you can keep them hungry with a stake in your business – so as the business grows so does their pay.
Even if you have no interest in owning or running a business, I encourage you to take a stake in the business you do work for. Don’t settle for the same pay-check if the business grows and is successful, invest your pay in company stock so your effort can be reflected in your profit. Seek out opportunity to participate in a worker owned business.
It just makes sense to me that a business with employees that want the business to succeed because it is also their own success… is more likely to succeed. The right way to keep an employee hungry.
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July 6th, 2009 on 11:25 pm
Thank you! I would now go on this blog every day!
July 7th, 2009 on 12:34 am
To be honest I don’t post every day.
July 12th, 2009 on 5:28 pm
Rather interesting. Has few times re-read for this purpose to remember. Thanks for interesting article. Waiting for trackback
July 18th, 2009 on 11:53 pm
what a wonderful and informative site that you have
July 19th, 2009 on 5:17 pm
Another way the same thing might be said is that “pain is a terrific motivator.” People will do what they have to do to get by. Our job, as fellow human beings, is to give them a hand when they need it rather than criticizing them out of our baggage.
Dave´s last blog ..Is there a web site that matches your available ingredients with recipes?
July 19th, 2009 on 5:19 pm
When you come down to it, hunger does tend to cause people to forget all about class. This is not a class issue, it is a necessity issue. People should have a hand out, if needed. The rest of the time they could probably use a hand up.
Dave´s last blog ..Is there a web site that matches your available ingredients with recipes?
July 19th, 2009 on 9:55 pm
Yeah, but if you’re a businessman suggesting that hunger is a necessity issue for the health of business, it’s class war and as real as class war gets.
July 20th, 2009 on 1:46 pm
When an employee is allowed to earn a piece of the business, he works better and produces more. This is how it should be, even if the employer earns slightly less in the short term. The long term will more than make up for any temporary slack. Great post.
Keith M´s last blog ..Jul 17, The Norman Rockwell Santa from December 4, 1920 Saturday Evening Post Christmas
August 2nd, 2009 on 10:44 pm
WoW! Thank you very much for that enlightening article
July 8th, 2010 on 8:59 pm
Well, you are entitled to your opinion. But those of us that are progressive would fault this administration for its conservatism. The progressive attempts to extend unemployment benefits directly save the dignity and give hope to exactly working people. The recovery money spent has saved many jobs such that working people can stay working.
This economic disaster, remember, was engineered by 8 years of a Bush administration.