Capitalism vs Fun
It seems appropriate that this next section should fall on a holiday, not only because we associate holidays with fun but also because this is part of my fun, something I can't do at work. We live in a culture that tries to engineer employee attitudes with various kinds of workplace "fun"--from the chants at the beginning of the Wal-Mart day, to employee retreats, casual Fridays and birthday celebrations. But none of these things make up for the fact that we are laboring for an abstraction that we half suspect, until we actually learn it, will be used against us.
I struggle with this contradiction as a teacher. The saving grace is that I can actually teach a tool I know, at least to the best of my abilities. But the school setting is not "fun," and most efforts to make it more "fun" are simply distractions from the reminders that we are working in a school setting. Part of why there's a sense of "no fun" hanging over every school hour is the rightful sense, on the part of students, that this institutionalized form of education is probably not the best way to learn anything, that it's a hoop to jump to get out into the real world and really learn a thing or two. Part of why there's a sense of "no fun" is that the teacher has to be delusional not to recognize the truth in that perception. Part of why there's a sense of "no fun" is that both teacher and student know the hoop jumping that's being done guarantees nothing out in a work world where the worker's labor power is being driven down to zero.
So, instead of pretending to have fun, I try to opt for realism and the best parts of humanity--compassion and respect, two things I am not paid to offer my students. But these two things actually do offer me (and I hope my students) some sense of fun in the classroom because acknowledging the ugly realities and the myths of education allows us to conspire in subversive behavior. No doubt, as Lebowitz describes below, the system will conspire to take this wiggle room out of the equation. I can already see where the potential for such honesty will diminish with the online classroom, where every comment is put down in writing.
How do you see the trends Lebowitz describes here where you work or in places where you have worked?
Lebowitz writes:
Why producing under capitalism isn’t fun
54. In other words, it’s not an accident that most of us find the workplace a place of misery—the process of capitalist production cripples us as human beings. But, why can’t workers simply struggle against this? Why can’t they turn the capitalist production process into a place consistent with human development?
55. Again, remember the logic of capital: if human development made profits for capital, it would have introduced changes that supported it. But capital isn’t interested in whether the technology chosen permits producers to grow or to find any pleasure and satisfaction in their work. Nor does it care what happens to people who are displaced when new technology and new machines are introduced. If your skills are destroyed, if your job disappears, so be it. Capital gains, you lose. Marx’s comment was that “within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productivity of labor are put into effect at the cost of the individual worker.” The logic of capital is the enemy of all-round human development.
56. So, if workers do succeed in making gains here (and elsewhere) through their struggles, capital finds ways to respond. And, it has the weapons it needs. Through its ownership of the means of production, its control of production, and its power to decide the nature and direction of investment, capital ultimately can do what it needs to do in order to increase the degree of exploitation of workers and expand the production of surplus value. While it may face opposition from workers, capital drives beyond barriers to its growth in the sphere of production. Capital rules in the sphere of production.
Rather than outlining and detailing out every work experience with every company I’ve worked for, I will simply say that every job I have had has been so very alienating and highly specialized as to not provide for me any intellectual or developmental fulfillment whatsoever. For instance, recently I was forced to take a paid job as a cashier rather than choose a more fulfilling position as an unpaid intern, a position that would have given me much experience in my chosen field. Money was the only reason I chose the paid vs. the unpaid position. While not denying the opinion people hold that one can find a vocation that fits their intellectual or instinctive needs, we cannot deny the fact that capitalism accounts for no obligation to cater to these needs. I’m under the impression that it works hard against our needs for the system’s own security and keeping workers at bay.
ReplyDeleteDanny brought up a point that has been lingering in my head for a few years. It is simply delusional to think that knowledge gained in the classroom can be carried with a person to their benefit for the rest of their working lives (unless you’re a brilliant genius, but most of us are not so). As Danny pointed out, students are confronted with the realities of the workforce only when they start experiencing it firsthand. Our post-secondary educational institutions are sort of behaving like corporations under the capitalist system in the sense that they are presented with more or less abstract facts that are not intended to directly engage students. Our institutions seemingly care less about the more engaging and concrete learning that can only be taught by having hands on exposure to what one is trying to learn than they do about the abstract learning taught by facts in books (mostly written by the aforementioned geniuses). For instance, it will be extremely difficult for me to memorize some of the common genera in the phylum of flowering plants and name a few common species solely from books I have read. It would be much easier and more practically efficient for me to learn by visiting these plants in person for me to memorize them. In the capitalist system though this is discouraged because of the hefty costs I would have to pay for me to perform my study. So many in the field except those more fortunate to have more of the capitalist currency are left with fewer options for a fulfilling job.
Same goes for those who major in business but may have the moral fortitude to actually want to change the system of our economy. Once they discover the sobering realities of the system they realize they are powerless to change it. Then they become entrenched with the personal power the system has to offer and they soon find themselves giving up the values they once had. I think the point I am trying to make here is that what we are learning through our schools, cultures, families, etc. eventually becomes suppressed, warped, and perverted by and for the advancement of companies under the capitalist system. It’s sort of disheartening to hear that a seemingly intellectually fulfilling job, like that of a teacher, can undergo the same process (i.e. like the methods by which you want to teach but can’t and the limitations on subject matter that can be taught).
The larger point I think we should make, or at least touch on, is how the division of labor that came along during the last 150 years or so with the industrial revolution should be one of the main culprits for our current work being so alienating, specialized, exploitative, demeaning, demoralizing, or otherwise “no fun”. While acknowledging the fact that work under capitalism is no fun, I can’t help but come back to the point that all work, or labor, done by living things, is purposely performed, either directly or indirectly, for survival. I think the more work becomes abstracted from that purpose, the more alienating and no fun it is.
I hope we have lurkers, Isaac, and I hope they're reading your comments because that's where the good stuff is.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the division of labor, although I also think that's a way of functioning that could feel very different under a system that lacked exploitation. If we were cooperating to get the job done for our mutual benefit, it could be fun. Hell, the fun part of work crews I've been on has sprung from that truth. You know those nights when everyone works together like magic because you all want to get out early? Tellingly, by definition, those were the same nights we weren't working for our wage.
I would add, too, that "for survival" might be very broadly defined. The more we learn about music, the more we learn it is, indeed, a tool for human survival. Still, the work we put into playing our music only makes sense as a piece of survival if we define it in terms of spiritual survival.
Most of the work I do is about spiritual survival to some extent, of course that survival comes through working to address the basic survival needs that bind us together. I think Maslow hinted at something like that, didn't he? Fulfillment is never achieved, but to the extent it is it's about our relationship to the larger community?
You're right, sometimes I overlook the value of some of our fun-times (like music) or even work times (like worker cooperation to achieve a common goal) that do fill a crucial void in our inter-social lives but only indirectly influence our survival. These instances are important, however, because they enrich our lives with those rare good feelings that make life worth living. These instances, I believe, occur most in those strongly coherent communities whose goals are centered around social development, and least in those (many more) communities whose goals are centered around profit and economic development.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to you're last paragraph, it is important to spearhead the basics for survival that are held in common by every human (or mammal for that matter), while getting past the distortions of these basics brought on by the commodification of society. I've never read Maslow, but your last sentence reminds me of a quote by John Lennon: "Life is a journey, not a destination." The closest to fulfillment human societies may ever come to is when their members realize they are part of a larger community experiencing similar, but equally different, struggles in life. Our never-ending struggles make up this "journey" of life.