Monday, September 5, 2022

I'm so over labor day this year

 I mean, let's be honest. Most Americans completely miss the point. A lot of people had to work today to serve overly entitled middle class Americans goods and services that they didn't really need. It's actually really sickening when you think about it. Of course some on the left bring up the irony of this, but it's completely lost with mainstream Americans. 

As for the left, I've seen some leftists pushing some weird work fetishism with the idea. Like how we should celebrate all of the people building the Panama Canal who lost their limbs and stuff (I CRAP YOU NOT). Like...UGH. Like, for most of our history, including today to some extent, work is necessary, but instead of celebrating the concept and the suffering people go through to make society possible, we should stop trying to work so hard and automate as much work as possible. I really am falling out with a lot of the left because a lot of them tend to fetishize the IDEA of work. They'll selectively make arguments I am sympathetic to like "wtf that's horrible, why are we living like this" to push their leftist ideals...but at the end of the day, all they want are better paid, and better treated wage slaves. And yes, I'm talking about the far left too. A lot of leftists fetishize work because of the labor theory of value in Marx's philosophy, and a lot of them still think the solution to all societal ills is more jobs. Even on antiwork spaces, "leftists" will crap on, say, UBI, while acting like the end all solution to everything is...a job guarantee.

Ugh.

Don't get me wrong. I support the labor movement. I support the right of all workers to be treated and paid better, and to work less. In capitalism (markets), workers should ideally try to do the least while being paid the most, to offset the natural tendency of business owners to work people more for less. But, a lot of workers completely miss the point of this and go all in with the hard work = success ideology, and demonizing the lazy and the holdouts for better conditions. Honestly, I support the labor movement for improving worker pay, for improving working conditions, for reducing working hours. I totally support that crap. As should any sane human being. But, I just can't get past this fetishization of work itself. Work isn't a good thing. Work sucks. We should do less of it. We should celebrate laziness, because laziness can breed efficiency. The good worker bee will expand work to as many hours as they can so they can beat their chest about what a hard worker they am. A lazy worker will try to figure out how to do a task with the least amount of effort. While we should support the labor movement and their contributions to society, we shouldnt get caught up in work fetishism. And yeah, that's all.

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