The Dollar, Oppression and a Viable Alternative
Fight'th'Man
We are constantly told if we work hard we will earn more and do better in life. This is a lie. Minimum wage, a concession paid for in the blood of years of Union struggle. The 8 hour work day, 8 to rest, 8 to play and 8 to keep the bills at bay. How about the 5 day work week. Won, won by struggle and years of pushing back. These small luxuries, why were they so hard fought?
Well to answer that question, first consider what money is. Money is a unit of currency exchange, divisible and able to multiply to infinite levels. The use of money is a system, one which is not consentual or even democratic, everyone born is forced into the system! The dollar and currency is an arbitrary unit, changing with inflation and deflation, wreaking havoc on the lives of everyone under the system. exchange is simply a tool to control the lives of the many, by the few. The origins of money may have been organic, but it is manipulated toady, for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many, or in the words of Smedly Butler “Its a racket”.
The Racket
Since those few at the top control the vast majority of money, they had the power against which workers fought to earn the 5 day work week, 8 hour day and a minimum wage. The few did not want to reform and still today resist any reforms, spending millions in lobbies, billions in add campaigns and control the mass media. We are constantly told if we work hard we will earn more and do better in life. This is a lie. The advertisements which fund the leisure Television shows, news and print are from the wealthy, in who’s interest they try to defend. In who’s interest they print, publish and inform to distract and blind the masses to this system, wage oppression.
But money is just a tool of exchange right?
The use of money on a arbitrary scale means that trys to match skill and time. This is a flawed and oppressive system. Since some people make more money, the wage system says your time is worth more. Since our lives are are limited in time, because everyone dies, money by its very nature implies that some people’s lives are worth more than others. That is a deranged manipulation of human existence. A system that even implies that someone’s life is worth more than others, is just plain wrong.
The wage system is oppressive, but its all we’ve got, right?
Wrong, actually trade and barter existed for millennia prior to the oppressive system we have today. Trading goods for goods, removes any ambiguity as to the real worth versus externalized costs. Trade local, work local and help those around you.
Another system that could still have an intermediary exchange unit, but remove the oppression inherent to the dollar system. A hour wage system would provide incentive to work, become educated and equalize the labor value. If a person works an hour, they are paid an hour. The value of the hour is divisible by the labor applied to it. So a gallon of milk may cost 3/16 an hour, a house small house 25,000 hours. etc. the work one does is valuable, a janitor should receive no less than the business executive. A janitor is not an unskilled trade and physical labor is no less valuable than drawing designs for a house. The level of education could be correlated to a lowering of taxation services. The hour wage system rewards greater, those who contribute more. The average work week on one’s life could then be paid to the individual upon an accepted age of retirement. There is so much more to this, that this article cannot indulge, Consider the possibilities of success!