Do you ever wonder about the purpose of life? Why are we all here and what are we doing with our lives? We live in an unprecedented time full of amazing opportunities on the one hand and terrible catastrophes on the other. But for the typical person working a 9-to-5 job (or more likely a 12 hour shift these days), it is likely that neither of these possibilities even registers on their mind. So many people are simply concerned with the business of surviving: finding a job, paying the mortgage, raising their children, and finding what little time there is left to de-stress from it all. Despite all of the labor-saving devices that were supposed to usher in an Age of Leisure, people seem to be working harder today than ever before.
The World Has Never Been More Productive, Yet We Keep Working Harder And Harder
Economist Richard Wolff points to the decoupling of productivity gains from income gains that began in the late 1970s and has accelerated ever since. The world has never been more productive, yet the average worker is getting poorer as most of the income gains in the economy flow directly to the top. It is obvious that something is seriously wrong on a systemic level, which beg the questions: Why are the majority of people on the planet focused on getting a job and – when or if they do – then find themselves working longer hours to receive less and less reward? If the average person isn’t really benefiting from their hard work, who is?
On the most basic economic level, there are two distinct classes of people – a select few have the ability to live truly free lives with absolute sovereignty over their time while most other people must trade their labor or time – which can also be called their life – for the means to survive. Isn’t your labor nothing more than your life’s energy? Isn’t it the same life from which you hope to fulfill your dreams, raise your family, and explore the fantastic experience of being alive? When we trade our life, what we get in return ought to be worth something.
Have You Ever Had This Feeling That Something Is Just Not Quite Right With Modern Society?
Are We Modern Day Slaves?
There is another name for a person who doesn’t have sovereignty over his own time. We call them slaves. Up until just a few centuries ago, the elite were actually allowed to legally own other people. For example, in ancient Rome it was estimated that 35 to 40 percent of the population were slaves. Today, involuntary slavery has, for the most part, been legally abolished, but life on earth may actually be worse for the vast majority of the working class: they are subject to voluntary slavery.
In a recent post on the Sustainable Man Facebook page, I asked the following question:
What is the difference between the following two scenarios?
- Being in a situation where you’ve been kicked off the land that sustained your family for generations and the only options for providing any sustenance is by taking a job making iPhones at 10 cents an hour; or
- Slavery
One of the top responses was: “Slaves have an investment by their owners and are generally provided with at least minimal care, housing and food. In general, they are slightly better off.” Indeed, this is true. Today, workers are generally interchangeable. If they get sick or injured, they can be immediately let go, replaced, and forgotten. If that means that they can no longer pay the mortgage on their home loan, the banks will repossess their home and sell it to the replacement worker, leaving the former in a situation where they must beg for resources to keep them alive.
So Are We Really Free?
Read more at : http://chrisagnos.com/are-consumers-just-voluntary-slaves/
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