Started out with “Occupy Wall Street,” found myself rereading Thoreau, visiting with Thomas Hobbes for a few minutes, apologizing to Marie Antoinette, and even learning that the “golden age” for American labor--the period in our history when workers were actually respected, appreciated, compensated fairly (well, more or less), when the “American Dream” actually was a real and tangible and achievable goal for the majority of Americans, lasted less than a quarter of a century: 1950-1973, more or less--about 1/10 of our nation’s history.
The latter I had kinda figured out on my own, although I had pegged the time frame as roughly end of WWII until about the early 1980s. Hey, I’m a product of American public schools, and so “don’t know much about history.”
Lucky me: I entered the workforce in 1975, not counting a couple of summers spent detasseling corn, or driving a tractor or “walking beans” for my grandfather.
Also figured out that, despite our “we’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take this anymore” Declaration of Independence, we’ve never REALLY gotten away from the elitist society at which we rebelled and from which we declared our independence.
American society, economically and politically, still seems to have underpinnings of “Some people count, some people don’t,” as so eloquently expressed by “Robby” in “Dirty Dancing.”
What I haven’t figured out, and what the Wall Street occupiers haven’t seemed to figure out, is what to do about it.
In microcosm, it’s the same quandary my father faces right now. My dad is a farmer, almost 80, and, as he puts it, “I’m wearing out, the equipment’s wearing out,” so he’s looking at retirement, decreased income, etc., unless he finds a way to find some “labor” to operate the equipment, to get corn and beans planted, sprayed, and ultimately harvested. He has an ex-grandson-in-law who can provide the labor, but likely not much of the capital. Dad could simply pay the guy a wage, but that wouldn’t be enough to guarantee the “labor” would be there when he needed to be there. So he’s trying to work out a plan that would be fair to them both, yet provide the “labor” enough incentive to show up for the 2-3 weeks at planting and harvest time, say 6 weeks total. Obviously, Dad can’t give “labor” half the crop for 6 weeks’ worth of work--but what would be fair, AND incentive?
Occupy Wall Street seems to want “fair.” But what would be fair?
Difference between Wall Street, politicians and most of corporate America, is that Dad DOES care about fair, which is why the “labor,” the ex-in-law, has a chance to do well in whatever arrangement they work out, and Dad will be able to keep farming a while longer, even if it means he has to share some of the profit. They’ll both “win,” in the long run. Dad may win “less,” in a way, but it’s better than having to close the business down, in which case NObody would win.
It all comes down to “fairness,” and that’s what I think the Wall Street occupiers--and most American workers--are after. Trouble is, “fair,” aside from those 23 years of labor “golden age,” has been defined by “capital”--by modern-day royalists who seem to think they have birthright to 90% or whatever of what America produces.
I mentioned Marie Antoinette and apologizing to her, earlier. The poor old queen of France, dead and headless, in some order or other, has been widely believed to have said, “Let them eat cake,” when told that there was no bread for the peasantry. I did a little (very little) research today and found that the quote, if it was “real” at all--and it probably was just an urban legend--actually dated from a long time before ultimately-headless Marie was even born, probably spoken by the Sun King, Louis Quatorze, the 14th, Marie’s husband (Louis 16’s) grandfather or something.
So I had to apologize to Marie for blaming her for corporate/political America’s callous disregard of the 99%, and the “let ‘em eat cake” “morality” that seems to drive them.
