Author Topic: Do I exist only for the eyes of the doctor, the judge & the grave digger?  (Read 1045 times)

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Holden

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Remember when Jesus told that hungry man to get a job instead of giving him bread? Me neither.


Though I remember this:
For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

From Marx:

A worker who has no work, has no wages, and since he has no existence as a human being but only as a worker, he can go and bury himself, starve to death, etc.


The worker exists as a worker only when he exists for himself as capital; and he exists as capital only when some capital exists for him. The existence of capital is his existence, his life; as it determines the tenor of his life in a manner indifferent to him.

Political economy, therefore, does not recognise the unemployed worker, the workingman, insofar as he happens to be outside this labour relationship. The rascal, swindler, beggar, the unemployed, the starving, wretched and criminal workingman – these are figures who do not exist for political economy but only for other eyes, those of the doctor, the judge, the grave-digger, and bum-bailiff, etc.; such figures are spectres outside its domain. For it, therefore, the worker's needs are but the one need – to maintain him whilst he is working and insofar as may be necessary to prevent the race of labourers from [dying] out. The wages of labour have thus exactly the same significance as the maintenance and servicing of any other productive instrument, or as the consumption of capital in general, required for its reproduction with interest, like the oil which is applied to wheels to keep them turning. Wages, therefore, belong to capital's and the capitalist's necessary costs, and must not exceed the bounds of this necessity. It was therefore quite logical for the English factory owners, to deduct from the wages of the worker the public charity which he was receiving out of the Poor Rate and to consider this to be an integral part of wages. (This is from 1848)

Things don't change,they never do :-\
« Last Edit: October 19, 2014, 10:21:23 am by Holden »
La Tristesse Durera Toujours                                  (The Sadness Lasts Forever ...)
-van Gogh.

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Nation of One

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Remember when Jesus told that hungry man to get a job instead of giving him bread? Me neither.

Holden, I actually remember reading this in the library when you first posted it way back then.

« Last Edit: October 29, 2020, 12:17:29 am by Sticks and Stones »
Things They Will Never Tell YouArthur Schopenhauer has been the most radical and defiant of all troublemakers.

Gorticide @ Nothing that is so, is so DOT edu

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