Understanding Why The Working Class Are Cheap

Understanding ones place in material reality is never a light hearted experience. The moment it hit me like a ton of bricks that I  am indeed nothing more than a cog in a profit driven machine, and have been so from the time I was born, left me with a deep feeling of being cheap. Mind you, I did not feel cheap in the traditional emotional gray area of the word, but more in the sense that my value as a human being is judged simply by how much profit I generate for the benefit of so few. Removing all lofty ideas of the cute notions of all human life has high value, I reached a material realization that in capitalist economics I am viewed as cheap no matter how much `profit` my labor produces. When thinking about this profoundly, to hold the belief that the ethics of the whole situation is somehow moral and `good for me` translates into my acceptance that my value as a human being is cheap. All humans must engage in labor in order to survive. This is not something which can be avoided. So, if I am laboring just as hard as everyone else, regardless of the type of work others are doing, then why is my labor considered cheap and others considered not cheap?

The Libertarian stand point would simply say that it is due to demand and the will of the market. That I have no control over the amount of profit my labor affords me. The only thing which controls the value of my labor, and thus my life, is the demand of the market. Well, what is driving this `demand` in the market in the first place?

It appears, in my limited perspective as a worker, that what is really driving this magic thing called `demand` is people`s desire to have stuff. Some of the stuff people really need like food, medicines, soap, houses and even a car perhaps. Other stuff people don`t really need but they want, or at least they say they want, like T.V.`s, video games, action figures, designer clothes and even hardcore porn. Yes! It must be people`s desire to have stuff which is the driving factor behind the magic thing called `demand.`

So let me get this straight: We all go to jobs everyday because there are two things called profit and demand which a lot of people desire. The higher the demand the more value my labor, and effectively, my life has in the grand scope of things. The harder I work the more profit is generated due to the demand. Yet, I don`t seem to be getting more stuff nor profit despite how high the demand becomes. Only some people are getting more stuff and profit. Only some people are considered to be of high value in the grand scope of economics. Everyone is doing their best, or as best as they can when their own material conditions are considered, but only some people seem to be getting a large benefit at the end of the day.

Something clearly seems to be missing in my efforts to understand why I am still cheap after all this hard work and talk of demand and profit. Well, if my fellow workers and I are not getting the most benefit then who is reaping the majority of the benefit? Well, I think it is important to take a look at something called class struggle.

You know about class struggle; right? I read about it and it seems that it is key to understanding why I am cheap while others are not cheap.

Classes of people, based on economics, is basically a structure in which people benefit from production based on their ownership of the means of production. You know, like who owns the place you and I work at or who owns the materials and tools you and I use to make stuff. Who ever owns the most means of production gets the most benefit. There are many different classes of people, but from what I have learned, there are some basic classes which most people can fit into.

Three basics classes:
Bourgeoisie=They own and control big things like huge industrial companies, governments, banks, media and natural resources
Petty Bourgeoisie=They own and control smaller things; and sometimes work for the bourgeoisie
Workers=They do most of the work and turn out most of the production. They own and control none of the means of production.

Like I said, classes of people can be broken down into many more finer and smaller groups depending on the overall material conditions, but the above groups of the basis of what makes up class struggle.

In order for me better understand why I am cheap I need to be aware of which class I fall into. Well, I do not own any means of production and I do not directly work for anyone who does control means of production. I must be in the worker class. A worker is paid a wage based on a set standard of how much their labor is worth according to the market; or so says the Libertarians and Capitalist. Clearly the Petty Bourgeoisie and the Bourgeoisie are the ones getting the majority of the benefit from all the profit and production my labor produces. I think I am getting closer to understanding why I am cheap.

Simple logic says that the market can only generate so much demand because people can desire only so much stuff. Demand cannot be infinite because there is not a infinite amount of people who desire stuff.  Also, demand must go up and down depending on how much stuff people desire at any one time. With such realities in mind, there must only be a certain amount of profit to go around. Considering that I am cheap, and a worker, then all workers must be cheap while other classes must not be cheap. That seems to be a very strange situation to me. The people who are doing most of the work and turning out most of the production are getting the least amount of the profit simply because they do not own the means of production. So, I am cheap because I do not own the means of production. So, my value as a human being, in the scope of economics, is based on my ownership of the means of production.

This brings up a larger sense of wonderment for me. How is ownership of production determined in the first place? It would seem natural that those who use something daily would be the owner of said thing. If most of the production is coming from the workers, and these same people are the ones using the means of production daily, they should naturally be the owners and the ones getting the majority of the benefit. Yet, this is not true at all. So, it is the overall class struggle which more fully explains why I am cheap while those of the higher classes are not cheap.

Okay....so by understanding exactly why I am cheap while others are not it seems there is only one choice for, not only me, but for everyone in the worker class to benefit more from the profit of our labor; law of opposites and negation must happen. What is `Law of Opposites` and `Negation?`

Law of Opposites=When who different groups, who are interdependent, have a disagreement which they are unable to resolve. They will oppose each other, and all production can sometimes stop, until an agreement can be made which resolves the disagreement.

Negation=When there are two groups and one group controls the other. The lower group seeks to attain the benefit of the higher group. The lower group will take steps to destroy the higher group and become their replacement. This process can often repeat itself many times until there is no longer a lower group.


The worker class wants more of the benefit of the `extra value of labor` or profit so the worker class will oppose the bourgeoisie until an agreement can be reached in which the `extra value of labor` is more evenly distributed among the different classes. This could take many forms and express itself in any number of ways.

Overtime, the working class will learn all the ways in which the bourgeoisie maintain their control of the means of production and will seek to view the bourgeoisie as a useless class. Replacing the bourgeoisie as the owners of production with the working class will result in negation. Only when that happens no one in the working class will be cheap any longer.

How is all of this achieved? Well, that is something to be thought about another day.


*This is a restart of this blog of sorts. There are many ideas and concepts which I want to express a rethinking about. I hope you will go on this journey with me. 

Sick of The Profit Margin

Your man of liberty is sick. I am very sick. In fact, I am so sick that I find it hard to keep from puking my cuts up on a daily basis. Day after day of seeing so many people willfully sell out all for the purpose of chasing a fraction of the profit margin guaranteed to a ruling class of sociopaths before hand. It is true you know....we are ruled by a unique brand of sociopaths who could care less about the common person. It is all about the money for these people. The money is their end goal. It is not power or control really; although those are methods commonly used to increase the profit margin. The profit margin is the beginning and the end. There is nothing more and nothing less. Even the social contract, which is meant to be an agreement between the people and the government, is seen as a tool to be twisted and used for the end goal of increasing the profit margin.

I am sure you can see it all around you and how this never ending desire to chase the profit margin effects everyone`s life.

I used to be one of those people who thought that the profit margin was the be all and end all of pretty much everything. I used to chase the very small fractional piece of the profit margin which is dangled on a stick in front of my face. I also used to think that if I just work hard enough, I could increase my share of that fractional piece of profit. Yet, now it is very clear to me that it does not matter how hard I work, nor how much I sell out, I will never be able to gain access to the top of the towers of capitalism. Even if I do get a piece of that fractional profit margin, I will never be able to really benefit from all of my hard work honestly. I will have to totally sell out my mind body and human spirit to the gods of capitalism to even have a minor chance of living `the good life.` The capitalist profit margin does not allow anyone to maintain high morals of having care and concern for their fellow human. What I do is try my best at work and try to survive on what tiny fraction of the profit margin which is afforded to me. Some may say that it is easy to say that because I am not `rich` or that I am simply complaining because I am too `lazy` to work hard enough have a high amount of money. Well, people who would say that must be living in a dream world or have never seen the conditions on the ground.

I have seen exactly what chasing the profit margin does to the common people time and time again. I meet people who are very good people. They have a good heart and really care about those around them daily. I see these same people sell out and step on almost everyone who are not in there own little bubble all for the purpose of chasing a tiny fraction of the profit margin. They will go from caring and loving to cold and brutal as soon as profit comes into play. I could give you example after example of this but I am not a man who feels comfortable naming names of the common people who engage in this kind of behavior. Yet, this endless cycle of dog eat dog and `I will get mine at all cost` does happen all the time. It is directly related to chasing the profit margin.

What these otherwise good people fail to realize is that they will never truly get their fair share of the profit margin. They will not get their fair share because they, just like me, have no control over the means of production. Their labor is not their own. The moment they start working for those who do control the means of production they lose all ability to truly reach beyond chasing after a tiny fraction of the profit margin. They will spend many years stepping on their fellow worker and human being chasing something which will never equal the production of their labor.

This is the reason I am sick of the profit margin under capitalism. It makes people cold blooded and willing to do anything to reach for something which will never equal the production of their labor.

The Other Path to Liberty

Any man of liberty should never stop seeking the heart of liberty itself. It is a journey which is deep in understanding; in the mind, body and spirit. This mostly hidden blog of mine has so far expressed a libertarian journey to liberty. A path which I have come to understand as having major contradictions of which I have spent many years trying to work out in my head. As a member of the so-called `Generation X` pure hardcore libertarianism  had always seemed to be a perfect fit for the times I live in. The fat days of our parents, for my parents those days were never so fat, seemed to be forever out of my reach. I simply had the hardest time seeing how I could enjoy a comfortable life in this post-modern age without having to be a brutal capitalist bastard willing to do just about anything to get ahead. I even tossed away my own father`s socialist/coal miner union roots in order to chase something which would never be my own. I did everything I could in an effort to escape the hardship of my parents.

It is important, at this point, to touch on my parents for a bit. My parents comes from the working class. My mother`s life is complex due to the divorce of her parents when she was very young. Her father(RIP) came from a very strong Scottish working class background. Her mother(RIP) was full blood Cherokee native American. Sadly, the marriage did not last and my mother was brought up by her uncle on her father`s side. My mother has always been very in touch with her emotions. She has always told me that I am a unique boy and that I should never let people knock me down. She made a fighter out of me.
My father(RIP) came from a hard working, hard drinking miner union family. My Father`s father(RIP) was a tall strong American-German with a heart of gold and a liver designed for massive abuse. His mother(RIP) came from a Irish background. She was a strong women who gave birth to many children. In their early days they ran a sandwich shop in Virginia. From what I was told, they mostly served working class men who worked too hard for very little pay. For some reason the shop was unable to make enough money, so they moved to West Virginia and into the mines Grand dad Smith did go. The rest is a history of striking minters, guns and a history of the Smith family which is better told another day.

Those are my roots. Something which took me a long time to come to terms with. After leaving the world of the privileged west and traveling to several unique nations and cultures, I have come to accept my background more fully than I ever have before. I spent all that time trying to escape things which were my foundation; the things which have shaped me if I like it or not.

Yet, even as I struggled from job to job and found myself taking on the debt of college tuition, I still had not realized what was going on around me. Until the past two years I was totally fixed on the idea that if I worked hard enough that comfortable life would be waiting for me. Even when I was a dish washer and living in a one room apartment I still thought that if I just kept on pushing forward good things awaited me. All that time I was unable to really see that certain material conditions were preventing me from ever fully escaping working class status. No matter how brutal I played the capitalist game, I was still just spinning my wheels.

All these years later I have come to realize what the problem is; The majority of the benefit from my labor is handed off to those who control the majority of the capital. That situation is not only true for me but for the majority of the people. As long as a minority controls the benefit of the majority`s labor, how can anyone really hope to achieve that picture perfect `comfortable life` we are all promised if we just work hard enough? It appears to be a pipe dream meant to keep everyone working themselves to death for a tiny fraction of the benefit from their labor. How can those who preach the Chicago School and Economics and glory of free market libertarianism justify this clear contraction of material conditions? I tried for years to justify it in my head and I simply can on longer defend the `morals` of no holds barred take no prisoners Capitalism. There is little humanity in it and it leads to the majority of people not fully benefiting from the output of the economy.

The common person deserves to get more benefit from all those profits from their own labor.

There are people who work really hard and never taste any of that comfortable life the capitalist class talks about all the time. I have seen people work like dogs before and get almost nothing for their efforts. There are countless people who are doing the majority of the work and getting little in the way of a return. There are people who work 10+ hours a day and get a tiny little paycheck which only barely keeps them alive. I find very little morals in such a situation.

For everything I just mentioned, and many other reasons, I cannot no longer call myself a libertarian. It is something many people ID me with and it has not been true about me for a while now. I feel we need a fully mixed system. A system in which the needs of common person will never come before profit. A system in which the people who are actually doing all the production have more control over the means of production. What we need,  now more than ever, a more socialist system.

The exact kind of socialist system I am not sure of yet. Which is why I have decided to use this blog in a two fold manner. One: To serve as a log of the my past thoughts on libertarian ideas(some of those may be revisited). Two: To explore the kind of socialist system which would best serve modern society.

This should be interesting to say the least.