While reading, an otherwise interesting review, of the book "Forever Free" by Eric Foner, I came across this quote that was talking about what the era of Reconstruction and the Emancipation did for America.
it asked still-unanswered questions about whether freedom for African-Americans -- or any other Americans -- signified more than the freedom to sell their labor rather than have it beaten out of them.
Where in this country, today, are we beating labor out of people, African-American or otherwise? Where is this occurring? Why isn't it in every single newspaper and news broadcast throughout the land? Why isn't it coating the blogosphere? The answer is, of course, that it isn't happening. The main reason it isn't happening is because, in fact, this question doesn't remain unanswered. It's been answered, quite successfully.
It's statements like this that let me know that I didn't move away from the left, the left moved away from me.
2 comments:
What do any of us do if not "sell our labor"? What more can anyone possibly ask?
There are only three alternatives: 1) Working for nothing (aside from pain avoidance), 2) Work for compensation (aka selling your labor) and 3) Receive compensation for doing nothing (Welfare).
Which would you choose?
(Yes, the fourth is not work and not get compensated, but people don't generally last more than a week or so like that, so I just ignored it.)
I think you're overlooking "Work for your fellow man instead of an unjust competitive system like capitalism, which is just slavery with a pretty face." [cough] [cough]
OK. I almost got it out straight. I don't have a clue what the yahoo who wrote this piece was driving at.
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