Labor Under Capitalism

This is, for many of us, the dream: unfettered commitment to externalizing our innards without concern for any gaze but our own. Reclaiming one’s time, you could say. But it requires nothing short of a battle.

When we place our faith in hard work, we’re wishing for the creation of character; but we’re also hoping, or expecting, that the labour market will allocate incomes fairly and rationally. And there’s the rub, they do go together. Character can be created on the job only when we can see that there’s an intelligible, justifiable relation between past... See more

If your role is focused on creating user and customer value, but management and leadership are incentivized to goose shareholder value, you are subject to that structural relationship and often have very little power to change it.

The cost of that $19.99 dress, as Thomas outlines in her book, is truly horrendous working conditions for other women — and massive ecological impact. But we’re removed from the conditions that produce it, the living conditions that result from it, and the realities of the waste it produces. All we see is a deal.

All we see with an Uber is convenie... See more

Just because something’s cheap and efficient doesn’t mean that it should be that way — or that your ability to access it doesn’t have significant human cost.