Wobbly times number 130

The Modern Way

                                                                 
Don't show you are hostile
your feelings are wrong
come now my darling
let them be gone
they're a big social stigma
they’re not even mature
you're aware of dysfunction
 that's NEVER approved
remember the others
are all just like you
one must embrace life
with positive tones
sure there'll be casualties
and a few broken bones
remember you have to
sell self with skill
wage-slavery’s the price mate
 that we must all pay
so suppress your emotions
and have a nice day
your fate is the market
your destiny's sealed
now on with the show love
 the modern way

Wobbly times number 129

On Reading

COLLAPSE

by Jared Diamond

It is disquieting

like watching one large accident

about to happen

with most every body

looking way away

far too willfully blind

too caught up

busy in our billions

burying noses

in some million dollar

owner’s  business

sticking the Earth

“our faire sister

in the side of the dawn”

with fences

symbolic markers around

“a vast accumulation of commodities”

which make up our wealth

especially our current Nature

Amen

“Well

it doesn’t affect

my children

or

my S.O.s!

Just leave me mate

the hell alone!”

And the Disquiet

worms its way

into our computed days

Somehow we know

in some fashion sense

sleep loss

weight gain

collapse

migraine

fear of our childrens’ tears

But

we’ve always done our work this way

just as we do it now

We sit upon an eve

and think

that we will never ever fall

I give us fifty years

old mate

give or take a few

We’ll slowly boil like lobsters

one by one

then two by two

while unbeknownst to all of us

we’ll turn a deep red hue

Wobbly times number 128

On the Eve of the Invasion of Iraq, 2003

It was a still Sunday morning in March. Even at 7:55am, the heat was already unbearable. The sun was pouring 40C down full scorn. It was Indian Summer in Perth and the Fremantle Doctor was out of town. Hector sat in his apartment waiting, his curtains drawn, his fan on full. As a janitor, he didn't bring much money home, even though he worked most everyday of the week. He had no regular pay. Essentially, he and his crew were on call for services so, the amount of money he had each week varied, sometimes quite widely. Hector was lead man at TempoJan. He'd be the first to get any call. He'd wake the others by phone, and become their wage-slave driver, if they were needed. Better, if he worked alone though. More money that way. But today was special. It was rent day. Both his employer and his "team members" at TempoJan knew that he couldn't take-off from home before 8:20am or so.

Hector lived life in the slow lane. He'd done that since he'd escaped from Sydney, his ex-wife and his failed building maintenance business. He'd traversed the whole of the Australian continent in a `66 Holden wagon ten years before. He still had his son and his daughter whom he would speak to now and again very loudly on his phone at 4 in the morning––his son being at university in Canada and his daughter, wasting her life away, employed in a shoe factory after her own divorce in Brazil. His wife...fortunately, he never heard from her again after he took off for the West Coast.

Hector's landlord would be coming by soon to pick up his bi-weekly rent. Don and his wife, Alice were always quite cheerful on rent days. They'd visit each of the eight apartments, knock on every door with a smile on their faces, expecting same and rent from those who answered. Funny how that works. Of course, they also used the occasion to take a peek at the condition their property was in. Two birds with one stone, win/win and all that.  Hector opened his door rather obsequiously after the first rap. He guffawed nervously, cigarette in hand. Alice tittered. "Eh, hombre!" he bellowed loudly. The others would know now that it was The Don. The Don was usually quite prompt for these Sunday rent collections––always 8am––unless something had gone awry––like the time he had to have his heart checked at the Royal Perth Hospital. Then, he'd phone Ian and Ian would make sure the other renters knew the new time of his arrival."Hot morning this one," Don observed to break the ice. Alice kept smiling. She reminded him of his ex-wife when she was giving worm pills to the family dog. His wife was Anglo too. "HereMercury." It was all wrapped up in hamburger that worm pill. Mercury would sniff and then his wife'd pop it down his throat as he opened his jaws for burger.  

Hector was from Brazil. Portuguese was his mother tongue. "Yayz. Buggah me. It'z ben so bloodah hah. Woo!"  Don Martino was of Italian stock. His parents had moved to WA to farm after WWII when he was still a little boy. They had been lured by the Australian Government's promise of cheap land. Plus, the idea of living in a country barely touched by war appealed to war weary Sicilians. Don's papa planted a couple of apricot and pear orchards. "The Don" as he was known, had taken overafter his parents retired. He'd decided to buy some apartments on the side in the 70s, after he'd married Alice. It was a second marriage for both of them and they'd wisely decided to pool their savings to buy some rental property before they'd gotten hitched. It was in writing.

The Don opened Hector's screen door and came in, black book in hand. "Less sigh, we goh-- elec-trissity this time oz while."   Hector silently grinned and asked as politely as he could, "How much bahz?" His tone was not challenging, indeed, it was taken humourously, The Don and Alice laughing out loud, The Don putting his pencil tip between his lips with his right hand while placing his left arm on Hector's shoulder."Well, ih comz to for-ee-oyt this toyem," Don informed him. His black book was at the ready, in case there was a challenge to the figure. "Eye goh eat," Hector replied. "Cheers Hektah, so ill be, let'z sigh", Don said as he took his pencil out of his shirt pocket and added the rent to the electricity figure on the pre-printed receipt, "too-hunret oy-teedollahs." Hector looked a bit taken a back and then smiled sheepishly, peeling off the $200 and then going into his back pocket, he pulled out his wallet for a fiver and then extracted a one and two dollar coin from his front pants-pocket.  After the last bout of the rent collecting ceremony had ended at Ian's door. The Don and Alice sauntered back slowly to their shiny, black, air-conditioned Holden Statesman for the drive back up to their home in the hills. Their spacious house was situated picturesquely next to their apricot and pear orchards.

As the Don and his Alice were going down the driveway into King Charles Street, Hector's phone rang and the owner of TempoJan informed him of a small clean up job at Skipper's Hyundai Auto Mart.  As Hector was putting his phone down, Jimmy, the Scotsman popped out of his apartment below. He immediately began to complain to Ian about how little The Don did for upkeep at the complex. Ian listened patiently, "Humm," he said. "Oy seee," he saidslowly. After pointing out for the 10,000th time how The Don only cared, "boot this," holding his hand up and rubbing his thumb and his index finger together, the scene evaporated in retreat from the ever rising sun, into the fan cooled interiors of their respective chambers.

Afternoon was even more torrid. By the time Hector got back, even the bricks in his apartment were radiating a withering heat. As he entered his oven-like home, he spied a cockroach out the corner of his eye. The toenail sized brown bug scuttled along the lip of the sink, racing behind the fridge. "Got damn ro-shez," he whispered irritably, as the stale,humid air of the apartment sank into his lungs. He had to keep it locked and sealed when he was away. There were break-ins happening all the time in his neighbourhood. A yawning wave came over him. It was time to nap. He shut the front door, opened his windows and turned his two fans on. He left his sweat soaked clothes in one clump. The hot, form fitted sheet stretched across a lonely queen-size mattress which was plopped, frame-less. atop a set of box springs. His head slumped into the feather-filled pillow.

Dream dramas took over more or less instantly as he found himself in a furniture-less living room. His ex-wife was shouting at him because he hadn't remembered where her laundry was. A kangaroo appeared behind her, putting its arm over her shoulder. But she didn't seem to notice its presence as she shrieked. On thefloor, surrounded by wall stickers, advising the location of her web site (complete with telephone number), the sloth-ant arched, its black, furry back.....

He awoke clutching his heart! His pillow was damp from sweat. He glanced at his alarm clock. He had been out for an hour and a half. He got up, trundled to the bathroom and splashed cool water on his face. The feeling was so refreshing that he decided to shower. In he jumped, letting the water run cold over his back, over his head, then he adjusted it warmer and shampooed his matted hair. The rest of the accumulated dirt and encrusted sweat-scum from his body disappeared under the vigorous sudsing action of an aqua-green Palmolive soap bar. From there, it was off to the fridge door for a cold one.

"No beer!' his thoughts panicked in Portuguese. He remembered now that he'd drunk the last of his Emu Bitter block on Saturday night with Jimmy. "Time to get dressed and make your way to the bottle shop at the Broken Hill," he whispered to himself in Portuguese. Out he went, into the last, dimming orange tinted light of day, with his partially jelled hair slicked back, crisp white shirt on, his khaki coloured shorts only one day old. His flip-flops struck his heels rhythmically and he walked down the cement staircase onto the driveway and onto the sidewalk. He proceeded down King Charles road to the Albany Highway, to cross the street to the sparkling, old Aussie hotel structure known as, The Broken Hill. 

"Perhaps a small beer before I go to the bottle shop," he reflected outside pub entrance."G'day myte," Ian said smiling from the bar. "How long Yu ben he-ah?" Hector asked."Since `bout tha-rree the avo myte." said Ian. "Come, I'll by ya a Jameson's.""I'm goin' to the boh-ul shop myte." 

Hector answered as he took the whiskey in hand and downed it in one quick, satisfied gulp.Ian sniffed the lip of his tumbler and then, "Dawn tha hahtchmyte. I'll calm which ya. By the whey, did yah know ah'mgoin' back ta Ireland next year?. I want to see weatha I kin live there agin," Ian said."Am leavin' this blood-ay Westurn Austrailyah too," Hector replied. "Ma see-ster sayz thot I cah leave which her familia until I get whirk." "Where'z tha, myte?""Brass-eel," Hector said. "Way-ahr  you tink?""Less go," Ian said. He accompanied Hector to the bottle shopjust outside and around the corner."One block of Emu Bitter and one litre of Jameson's. Is that all?", the bottle shop attendant asked."Yayz," Hector answered. "Hearz thur-tee for the whiskey, myte." Ian said putting onehand on Hector's shoulder while shoving the thirty dollars into his mate's palm."I tank U, leslie tanks U," Hector replied grinning, a freshly burning cigarette dangling from his lip. 

Hector had lived in America for a few months, learning English and some of the commercials stuck, it seemed, forever. He took the cold Emu block under his arm. Ian grabbed the Jameson's and the two made theirway back across the Albany Highway, up King Charles road, into the driveway, up the cement stairs and into Hector's hot-as-an-oven kitchen.

"Blah-dee roaches!" Hector said as he twisted the brownexo-skeleton against the wall near the light switch. He wiped the gut stain from the wall with a paper towel. "Podon me. I'ma gonna wash ma handz." "No were ease, myte," Ian smiled. "Aye got the sameproblem. These thingz are a bloody new-since." "Yah, and Jim-ah, he say, The Don, he don't donothin'," Hector guffawed from the bathroom. "He juscollek da rent." "Nowah, therez a trooth," Ian returned.

Hector came out, turned the TV on sound down and put an Anita Bryant LP on his record player. "The man is the soul of a woman," she wailed. The music drifted on through an eclectic selection of piled discs. The TV in the background flickered like a campfire as the two sat at Hector's kitchen table talking weather, sports, former familylife, and news events while downing swigs of Jameson's, followedon by Emu Bitter stubbies. 

The last record plopped down on the turntable and the Morman Tabernacle Choir came on with their stirring rendition of, "Onward Christian Soldiers". The two men stopped talking, giving the choir their undivided, even rapt attention. The music stopped and a moment of silence ensued. 

Of a sudden, they started slurring their views on the coming war. "Waz you think? The bloodee Air-abs. Therz no hopa. Bloodee liars, all of them. Hypocrits. All of dem-- hyp-O-crites."

"Am not sure what's happenin' owt they-are now,myte," Ian said, his head lowered, his eyes looking up through his thick eyebrows. Then, with his head cocked sideways, he looked askance at Hector from his kitchen chair. His broadly set, greyish-blue eyes stared out from his white, partially balding skull. 

"Not shoah? Dare blooda hypocrits. I theenk dah Americans are gonna bomb dem back to sheet. But no dramas fo me, myde. I stick bah mahself. Day go aroun bombing sit-ays and so fort," Hector said looking a bit desperate. He had forgotten to take his medicine after getting up in the morning. 

"I d'own ax-act-lee know wha you myan, myte?"

"I meen, they all hypocrits, the whole useless bloodee lot. They can all die in their sheet. I doan cair. Wha you meen yu do-own noah? You some kind of hypocrit too?"

"Wha? Yur sayin' I'm a hypocrit?"

"They all dezerve die. Nothin' but hypocrits."

"Whass. You sayin', I'm a hypocrit?"

"They all hypocrits. They talk one ting and sigh an-udder,"Hector said. "They sheet."

"Whass? You sayin', I'm a hypocrit?" Ian insisted.

"The blood-ah Erbs, they gonna get it now. Saddam, hissheet."

"U sayin' I'm a hypocrit?" Ian kept on, his dark,deep voice slurred, but threatening too.

"Dat Bush, heez hypocrit too. Belief me, the world is full of`em. All liahs," Hector answered.

"U sayin' I'm a hypocrit?" Ian asked again. 

Too much booze in too little time had changed them both into the other people, the people they would be happy to forget they were in the morning.

"Da world iss a big plaza ma ferend. Full a hypocrits. I doanlie. No, I doan need ta lie. Day all lie. I doan need a lot. Am simple mine. Haf a simple life, right he-ah. I doan need they steen-king money. Am a simple mine."

"U sayin' I'm a hypocrit?"

Another silence fell over the table. The men looked through their blurred visions at each other.

"Get ow of mah house!"

"U sayin' I'm a hypocrit?"

"Geh ow mah house!"

"U sayin' I'm a hypocrit?"

Hector got up and opened the front door. Then Ian got up and Hector tried to push Ian away towards the screen door. But Ian wasn'tso easily dealt with. He stood his ground and with determined, semi-bowed gaze focussed on Hector, his slurred speech erupted once again, "U sayin' I'm a hypocrit?"

The two men were close to being the same size. Both had had about the same amount to drink. Only Hector was a bit more under the influence of things beyond his control. He stood in close proximity to Ian, and with a frustrated, angry, loud, "Hee-ah!" heforced his mate's torso into the precariously latched, aluminum-framedscreen door. Ian's body went backwards, out onto the cat walk cement landing. 

With this victorious defence of his territory, Hector quickly slammed his front door, "Bang!" as he glimpsed hisdrinking mate's body hit the iron grating outside and begin its bounce back towards him at the entrance to his apartment. He stomped through his living room/kitchen turning off all three of his lights. Then, in the dark, he set his alarm for 5am. Still fully clothed, he collapsed onto his bed and into an immediate, if troubled sleep.

After loudly inquiring three more times, "U sayin' I'm ahypocrit?" while banging his fist against Hector's door, Ian retreated to his corner abode. He turned his record player on-- volume on high. It was 3am and the air inside his brick dwelling was a stale 40C. The sounds of "Irish Eyes Are Smiling" blared from his open windows. He sat in his chair staring, incoherent soliloquies flowing through his mind like bands of angry chimps. 

At five, Hector's alarm rang and didn't stop ringing until seven.

Wobbly times number 127

Observations on September 11, 2001

written by

Michael Thomas Ballard

on September 12, 2001

murder is not a legitimate political weapon

murderers should be jailed for life

they're bad for our health

 fundamentalism is a dangerous ideology

no matter what its dogmatic flavor

oh suicidal self-abnegation

is your name only kamikaze

if I thought the "U. S. is the great satan"

then i'd guess i'd think that god was on my side

especially if I was dirt poor and ignorant

"gott mit uns" was inscribed on the belt buckles

of german soldiers

who took off to smash the U.S.S.R on june 22, 1941

hitler "heroically" shot himself four years later

feeling betrayed by "his" deutsches volk

now

let us hear the war cries coming from the bravest of the future non-combatants

many of them "our" leaders

"let us prey,"

they say out loud

 for the teevee audiences of the world

half devoured children dripping from their mouths

Wobbly times number 126

For the record, I don't think the IWW was/ is an anarchist organisation.  Of course, there are plenty of anarchists, anarcho syndicalists in the IWW, along with communists, democrats and workers with various ideological preferences. How could it be otherwise in a union dedicated to classwide organisation? Workers are different, come from different backgrounds, different personal histories and from different cultures.  Workers are individuals and by definition, individuals are diffferent. There was never a time when Wobblies have been barred from voting in elections on pain of losing membership in the One Big Union; just as there has never been a time when the IWW barred members from believing in god(s). DeLeon was dishonest when he portrayed the IWW as being anarchist, all because the union didn't ENDORSE voting and instead leaving it a private matter for the member.  He took out his personal anger on the union, after being denied his delegate's credentials at the 1908 Convention of the IWW, denouncing the One Big Union as having been captured by people who would subject its members to being tartgeted by State sponsored, agent provocateurs because 'the political clause' had been dropped from the IWW Preamble by the attending delegates. While the fear of police agent infiltration is genuine in any revolutionary organisation, merely endorsing peaceful revolution via the Amendment Clause to the US Constititution is no guarantee of freedom from police spies and provacateurs in your organisation.  But more than this, the IWW doesn't endorse a lot of proscriptive ideological doctrines. For example, the IWW also doesn't endorse Socialist Realism as the only form of acceptable working class art, although some on the left would consider that a terrible misjudgement.  The truth is that the IWW doesn't endorse a lot of the left's pet reformist projects. What workers need to know is that the IWW is organised around its Preamble. What Wobblies want and struggle for is written there, out in the open for all to see.  Wobblies are individual workers (sorry, no member of the employing class allowed membership) who endorse the Preamble, no matter whether they believe in divine powers after death; the Pope's inherent infallibility or surrealism as the only revolutionary art form etc. You will find no mention or endorsement of violence, 'bombism' or 'anarcho-syndicalism' in the IWW's Preamble. On the other hand, you will find a resolution in its Constitution which was written in 1908 stating that the IWW "...refuses all alliances, direct or indirect, with existing political parties or anti-political sects." That said, DeLeon was on target in his definition of socialism and his conception of how a revolutionary political party should dissolve itself and the political State on the day of its victory at the polls, as the workers themselves, organised in democratic, socialist industrial unions take, hold and operate the means of production for themselves.

Industrial Unionism
by Daniel De Leon
from The Daily People, Jan. 20, 1913 

In these days, when the term "Industrial Unionism" is being played with fast and loose;

-- when, in some quarters, partly out of conviction, partly for revenue, "striking at the ballot box with an axe," theft, even murder, "sabotage," in short, is preached in its name;

-- when, at the National Councils of the A. F. of L., lip-service is rendered to it as a cloak under which to justify its practical denial by the advocacy and justification of scabbery, as was done at Rochester, this very year, by the Socialist Party man and International Typographical delegate Max Hayes;

-- when notoriety seekers strut in and thereby bedraggle its fair feathers;

-- when the bourgeois press, partly succumbing to the yellow streak that not a member thereof is wholly free from, partly in the interest of that confusion in which capitalist intellectuality sees the ultimate sheet-anchor of class rule, promotes, with lurid reports, "essays" and editorials, a popular misconception of the term;

-- at this season it is timely that the Socialist Labor Party, the organization which, more than any other, contributed in raising and finally planting, in 1905, the principle and structure of Industrialism, reassert what Industrial Unionism is, restate the problem and its import.

Capitalism is the last expression of class rule. The economic foundation of class rule is the private ownership of the necessaries for production. The social structure, or garb, of class rule is the political State -- that social structure in which government is an organ separate and apart from production, with no vital function other than the maintenance of the supremacy of the ruling class.

The overthrow of class rule means the overthrow of the political State, and its substitution with the Industrial Social Order, under which the necessaries for production are collectively owned and operated by and for the people.

Goals determine methods. The goal of social evolution being the final overthrow of class rule, its methods must fit the goal.

As in nature, where optical illusions abound, and stand in the way of progress until cleared, so in society.

The fact of economic despotism by the ruling class raises, with some, the illusion that the economic organization and activity of the despotized working class is all-sufficient to remove the ills complained of.

The fact of political despotism by the ruling class raises, with others, the illusion that the political organization and activity of the despotized working class is all-sufficient to bring about redress.

The one-legged conclusion regarding economic organization and activity fatedly abuts, in the end, in pure and simple bombism, as exemplified in the A. F. of L., despite its Civic Federation and Militia of Christ affiliations, as well as by the anarcho-syndicalist so-called Chicago I.W.W., -- the Bakouninism, in short, against which the genius of Marx struggled and warned.

The one-legged conclusion regarding political organization and activity as fatedly abuts, in the end, in pure and simple ballotism, as already numerously and lamentably exemplified in the Socialist Party, -- likewise struggled and warned against by Marx as "parliamentary idiocy."

Industrial Unionism, free from optical illusions, is clear upon the goal the substitution of the political State with the Industrial Government. Clearness of vision renders Industrial Unionism immune both to the Anarch self-deceit of the "No government!" slogan, together with all the mischief that flows therefrom, and to the politician's "parliamentary idiocy" of looking to legislation for the overthrow of class rule.

The Industrial Union grasps the principle: "No government, no organization; no organization, no co-operative labor; no co-operative labor, no abundance for all without arduous toil, hence, no freedom." -- Hence, the Industrial Union aims at a democratically centralized government, accompanied by the democratically requisite "local self-rule."

The Industrial Union grasps the principle of the political State -- central and local authorities disconnected from productive activity; and it grasps the requirement of the government of freedom -- the central and local administrative authorities of the productive capabilities of the people.

The Industrial Union hearkens to the command of social evolution to cast the nation, and, with the nation, its government, in a mold different from the mold in which class rule casts nations and existing governments. While class rule casts the nation, and, with the nation, its government, in the mold of territory, Industrial Unionism casts the nation in the mold of useful occupations, and transforms the nation's government into the representations from these. Accordingly, Industrial Unionism organizes the useful occupations of the land into constituencies of future society.

In performing this all-embracing function, Industrial Unionism, the legitimate offspring of civilization, comes equipped with all the experience of the age.

Without indulging in the delusion that its progress will be a "dress parade"; and, knowing that its program carries in its fold that acute stage of all evolutionary processes known as revolution, the Industrial Union connects with the achievements of the revolutionary fathers of the country, the first to frame a constitution that denies the perpetuity of their own social system, and that, by its amendment clause, legalizes revolution. Connecting with that great achievement of the American revolution, fully aware that the revolution, which it is big with, being one that concerns the masses and that needs the masses for its execution, excludes the bare idea of conspiracy, and imperatively commands an open and above board agitational, educational and organizing activity; finally, its path lighted by the beacon tenet of Marx that none but the bona fide Union can set on foot the true political party of labor; Industrial Unionism bends its efforts to unite the working class upon the political as well as the industrial field, -- on the industrial field because, without the integrally organized union of the working class, the revolutionary act is impossible; on the political field, because on none other can be proclaimed the revolutionary purpose, without consciousness of which the Union is a rope of sand.

Industrial Unionism is the Socialist Republic in the making; and the goal once reached, the Industrial Union is the Socialist Republic in operation.

Accordingly, the Industrial Union is at once the battering ram with which to pound down the fortress of Capitalism, and the successor of the capitalist social structure itself.

Wobbly times number 125

"At the end of the chapter [on primitive accumulation] the historic tendency of [capitalist] production is summed up thus: That it itself begets its own negation with the inexorability which governs the metamorphoses of nature; that it has itself created the elements of a new economic order, by giving the greatest impulse at once to the productive forces of social labour and to the integral development of every individual producer; that capitalist property, resting as it actually does already on a form of collective production, cannot do other than transform itself into social property. At this point I have not furnished any proof, for the good reason that this statement is itself nothing else than the short summary of long developments previously given in the chapters on capitalist production."   Karl Marx
*************************************

I think that the 'development of every individual producer' was undermined by the very historical process on which collective production expanded. Through this lens we see the commodification of human relations. With the cheapening of the commodity through industrialisation came the cheapening of social relations of solidarity in both the working class and its masters. The commodity is corrosive to community.  Yes, communities can develop under class rule, even with all their dominance and submission fetishes. Reactionaries seize on the feelings of insecurity which generalsed commodity production induces and push the need to look backwards in time for salvation from moral corruption.  Liberals feel the commodity's alienating powers, describe them and then resign themselves to the absurdities of life and shop on. Use-value (the material core of the commodity, encased in its capitalist shell of exchange-value) is lost in a haze of electronic blips, buying and selling, gaining market share. And always, the relentless cheapening of the commodity mingling with capitalist class society as a whole. And the proletariat calls itself the middle class and thinks of themselves as individual consumers, competing for the lowest prices.  And with less and less labour time in the collective product, the fact that it is a collective product of labour disappears in an immense, constant sale. Wherever you look, you see an advertisement for a commodity. The 'development of every individual producer' is not something to be assumed.  History demonstrates that this development requires education, agitation and organisation by and amongst the workers themselves about who creates the wealth and which class appropriates the lion's share of both wealth and political power through the wages system of slavery.  

"Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature's productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal. An immeasurable interval of time separates the state of things in which a man brings his labour-power to market for sale as a commodity, from that state in which human labour was still in its first instinctive stage." Karl Marx 


But what also has happened is the commodification of human relations, of social relations. The discipline necessary to maintain the sophisticated division of labour within industrially developed capitalism, to keep it running the show, so to speak, is made easier for our rulers as the commodity invades our everyday lives at every level and even our relation with Nature. Commodification develops cheapness in critical thinking as it destroys Nature in the pursuit of market share. "We had to destroy the Earth in order to save the economy."   The commodity puts a price on everything. Our mind's eyes are fixed firmly on consumer prices. Reification is built into the language as corporations become thought of as subjects creating wealth. "Mercedes produces the best cars."  The legalised separation of the product from the producer is aided and abetted by commonplace notions, embedded in the cultural intercourse which distance concepts like 'expoitation' from 'wage' and hitch words like 'fair' and 'social justice' to more 'humanely' moderated wage-slavery.  

The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialised production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties -- this possibility is now for the first time here, but it is here.

With the seizing of the means of production by society, production of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social production is replaced by systematic, definite organisation. The struggle for individual existence disappears.

Then for the first time man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions of existence into really human ones.

The whole sphere of the conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature because he has now become master of his own social organisation.

Friedrich Engels, from Anti-Dühring, part 3, chapter 2 (1877)

Wobbly times number 124

Source: Hubblesite.org

Beware the Secret synthetic Life

I knew

that face would haunt me

at my dying breath

The photo-captured time

still full of life

un

dead

preserved moments

in a shrunken skull

Memories lost

in aftermath’s dusty cloud

invisible now

that consciousness is dead

Images lie

The truth is closer

to the quick

Gone!

as soon as spoken