File spoon-archives/marxism-intro.archive/marxism-intro_1998/marxism-intro.9802, message 146


Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 22:02:40 -0700 (MST)
From: Rolfe-AT-pseud.pseud
Subject: Re: M-INTRO: good paying jobs



On Fri, 20 Feb 1998 Animal-AT-pseud.pseud wrote:
>>
>>However unskilled workers which become skilled workers are almost
guaranteed a wage increase.  Being untrainable or unteachable will
ultimately lead to a lower pating job.  They may get lucky and start out 
with a decent paying job but over time their inadequacy will be revealed
and they will end up with reduced compensation.
>>
Wait a second, Animal, but your message implies that the skill level of
the woker is an inherent property of the person. "Untrainable" and
"unteachable" aren't characteristics of many people. These are words like
lazy, inept, unmotivated, that the ruling class have attributed to the
unemployed, destitute, homeless, and lower wage earners in order to
deflect the truth that the reason people have to live like that is because
the free market dictates it. Aristocrat thinkers like Hobbes and Malthus
defined the human as such, and intimated that those who rose above
humanity's poor state deserveed to (as justified by God) live like kings.
This approach has helped hide the reality of capilatism, and so we pass
regressive laws, like the food tax and welfare reform (which will kill
many people if softer hearts don't ammend the law), and the public
cheersbecause we have been manipulated into resenting the poor for
"stealing" our money (make honestly through work) and living off
us--rewarded for being "lazy". So, a single mother
of two or three children will never have an opportunity to get a college
degree, or we hold people of minority status back from getting
promotions, raises, etc., like in Texaco Corp. or the steel mills in the
South.   

Yes, we should be angry that we're not seeing the just dividends of our
labor, but the poor have nothing to do with it. The real robbers are those
who live off of our surplus labor. And people DO become
"unteachable" and "untrainable" to the degradation of the human spirit by 
capitalism, and there are workers who lash out, like in the Luddite
Movement
when peasants destroyed the machinary of the factories where they had been
exploited (and the strikes/demonstrations of Spanish, French and German
workers today). The capitalists use the press, the law, the
language, and force to stop them. The key is if we can see through ther
attempts to manipulate us, and force them out of power.



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