Which laborer scenario would you choose as a worker? One that will allow you to excel given your input and talent or one that will allow you to be like everyone else and get paid for what you and they do, as you go?
Behind the labor movement, I think that is the most encompassing question. I have no doubt that mankind, who are not allowed to excel, will not reach their potential and I have no doubt that there are those who do not care, but maybe because they don't truly understand what labor is.
Truth is we are all laborers: be it those who work for ourselves or those who work for others. Labor is at the core of making any business viable. A business cannot survive without the output of hard work and I can bet you that every mom and pop or large corporation, looking far enough back to it's beginnings will have at the core, themselves as hard working laborers. The trouble is, that the media, be it in books, or documentary form, tend to concentrate on their big success and not the steps it took to achieve it. They tend to gloss over the hard days, the days that it takes every ounce of will to continue the labor and the quest for success.
Labor produces; be it on a farm, in a factory or at a desk. I labor every day doing what I do and I bet everyone does who puts in a minute of time into what they earn money with. Even the homeless who stand at freeway on ramps and exits with their sign do labor. But labor does not equate to money and those that have told you it does or should, have done a great disfavor to most.
The truth is that labor earns, but it does not always earn money. It can earn food for a farmer/gardener, it can earn the product for a inventor/fixer, it can earn audience for an entertainer, but does that mean they will be able to go to the bank with it? NO. Does it mean that all labor is rewarded by riches? NO. Does it mean that all who labor should be paid? NO.
That last one will probably raise shackles with many, but perhaps they miss the point. Labor is done for itself or better put, for the laborer, because there are two things we all earn in doing our labor: survival and satisfaction. Two very powerful motivators. A mother and teacher labors for their children. The entrepreneur labors over developing an idea. People all over the world labor daily for the food they eat if they are lucky. Some labor to sell their goods for return of money, but the labor is not paid in that case, it's the product that the labor produces which is what earns the money. All done for survival and satisfaction.
This is where most Unions and Socialists miss the mark. They tell you equal pay for equal work, which at the base is impossible, but even if it were true, human beings compete at every level of existence, and what they offer is a homogenized version of self, where pocketbook may be satisfied but not the soul. Is it not why workers measure everything by their earnings rather than their achievements? Do people go to work with them to earn money or to earn satisfaction?
And therein lies again the reason why all laborers are at the core, capitalists. We all, every one of us, after all that hard labor wish to get the most for what we produce, and rather than pitting one against the other, laborer vs owner, it's time to realize we are all doing the same thing and wishing to achieve the same goal: Success at the level of satisfaction which only our own labor of love can receive.
Happy Laboring
Anni
The Daily Pick - A Labor of Love
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