sortiwa
BY SOFO ARCHON
This is the transcript of a video published here.
I’m neither a Marxist nor a communist. But I like something Marx wrote in his Communist Manifesto in 1848:
“Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!”
It’s been nearly two centuries since then, and people are still chained; they are still enslaved to their work and those who give it to them.
You see, about half of their waking time is owned by someone else who’s profiting off their labor. Yet people think they’re free!
“How dare you say we’re enslaved?” I can almost hear some of you thinking. “Slavery is something of the past. Humanity has moved past it.” “Now we are free. Free to pursue work that we want. Free to live life as we want.”
But that’s a lie, of course – at least when it comes to the general population. Yes, nowadays most of us have the freedom to choose our owners. But how many of us have the freedom to not choose an owner at all?
You see, in abject slavery, the owner chose his slaves, whereas in wage slavery the slaves choose their owner.
Of course, no person deep down wants or likes that. Yet nearly everyone is coerced to do so by an inherently antagonistic and exploitative economic system. For the vast majority of people have to submit to wage slavery in order to “earn a living.” But what’s the point of “earning a living” if we don’t truly live?
If you take a good look around you, you will see that most people are struggling, living paycheck to paycheck, and feeling insecure about their future – because it is controlled by someone else! But it’s up to us as a collective whether we’ll continue living this way or not. For the power our owners have, was given to them by us, and we can take it back at any moment we decide to.
Of course, the owners aren’t at the root of the problem either. For, like the owned, they are just symptoms of the same rigged economic system. But that system was created and is upheld by us, the people. Therefore, it’s in our hands to destroy or totally transform it, if we truly want to.
So, the question that we need to ask ourselves is: Is this the world that we want to live in? A world where one’s work is owned by another? A world where one’s success means someone else’s indignity?
I’m not sure about you, but I don’t want to live in such a world. I want to live in a world where people respect and care for each other. A world where people work together for the common good. A world where people share resources and harmoniously coexist.
Imagine such a world. Would it not be way more beautiful?
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