8\/11\/2013 Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Honey Moon<\/p>\n
Having an intellectual experience with a lot of reverb right now.\u00a0 I read the Communist Manifesto as I said above, but I also read estranged labor, also by Marx.\u00a0 The two together make for surprisingly contemporary and trenchant critiques of our political economics.\u00a0 A key point Marx makes is the problem for the working class is that their labor becomes, literally, objectified.\u00a0 That is, the thing they make, whatever it is, contains their effort and energy but belongs to another, usually, too, becoming unavailable to the ones who made it.\u00a0 I thought of workers on a Cadillac assembly line or LPN\u2019s working in hospitals but not having adequate health care.\u00a0 The object, the product of labor, leaves the hands of the worker and his\/her life, then becoming estranged from them.\u00a0 Thus, labor is an act of self-estrangement from the product of your labor.<\/p>\n
Marx believed that labor should reveal and reaffirm the who that you are, make you more of, better than, the you were before your work.\u00a0 In this case the work is subjective, or the subject of the laborer, not an object.\u00a0 Here is an\u00a0article from the NYT<\/a>\u00a0yesterday about the arguments over raising the minimum wage.\u00a0 And\u00a0another<\/a>\u00a0about worker deaths in Texas.\u00a0 And, most tellingly, this one:\u00a0\u00a0U.S. Companies Thrive as Workers Fall Behind<\/a>.\u00a0 These are from just this last week.\u00a0 I never immersed myself in Marxist thought so I don\u2019t know the objections to his analysis, but from my cursory look at it, it explains a lot of the headlines.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the thing.\u00a0 In the third phase I have been promoting the idea of doing the work only you can do.\u00a0 Does that sound like work that reveals and reaffirms who you are, work that makes you more of, better than, the you before the work?\u00a0 It sure does to me.\u00a0 And that congruence feels fine to me, reinforcing.\u00a0 But.\u00a0 What if the third phase of life, life after formal education and life after full-time work, is the first time you can take up the work that only you can do?\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t that mean you engaged in alienating labor that estranged you from the product of your labor?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 8\/11\/2013 Lughnasa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Honey Moon Having an intellectual experience with a lot of reverb right now.\u00a0 I read the Communist Manifesto as I said above, but I also read estranged labor, also by Marx.\u00a0 The two together make for surprisingly contemporary and trenchant critiques of our political economics.\u00a0 A key point Marx makes is the problem … Continue reading Reverb<\/span>