Bread & Freedom by Albert Camus

 

Bread & Freedom

by

Albert Camus

Speech given to the labour exchange in Saint-Etienne in May 1953.

If we add up the examples of breach of faith and extortion that have just been pointed out to us, we can foresee a time when, in a Europe of concentration camps, the only people at liberty will be prison guards who will then have to lock up one another. When only one remains, he will called the `supreme guard,` and that will be the ideal society in which problems of opposition, the headache of twentieth-century governments, will be settled once and for all.

Of course, this is but a prophecy and, although governments and police forces throughout the world are striving, with great good will, to achieve such a happy situation, we have not yet gone that far. Among us, for instance, in Western Europe, freedom is officially approved. But such freedom makes me think of the poor female cousin in certain middle-class families. She has become a widow; she has lost her natural protector. So she has been taken in, given a room on the top floor, and is welcome in the kitchen. She is occasionally paraded publicly on Sunday, to prove that one is virtuous and not a dirty dog. But for everything else, and especially on state occasions, she is requested to keep her mouth shut. And even if some policeman idly takes liberties with her in dark corners, one doesn’t make a fuss about it, for she has seen such things before, especially with the master of the house, and, after all, it’s not worth getting in bad with the legal authorities. In the East, it must be admitted, they are more forthright. They have settled the business of the female cousin once and for all by locking her up in a closet with two solid bolts on the door. It seems that she will be taken out fifty years from now, more or less, when the ideal society is definitively established. Then there will be celebrations in her honour. But, in my opinion, she may then be somewhat moth-eaten, and I am very much afraid that it may be impossible to make use of her. When we stop to think that these two conceptions of freedom, the one in the closet and the other in the kitchen, have decided to force themselves on each other and are obliged in all that hullabaloo to reduce still further the female cousin’s activity, it will be readily seen that our history is rather one of slavery than of freedom and that the world we live in is the one that has just been described, which leaps out at us from the newspaper every morning to make of our days and our weeks a single day of revolt and disgust.

The simplest, and hence most tempting, thing is to blame governments or some obscure powers for such naughty behaviour. Besides, it is indeed true that they are guilty and that their guilt is so solidly established that we have lost sight of its beginnings. But they are not the only ones responsible. After all, if freedom had always had to rely on governments to encourage her growth, she would probably still been in her infancy or else definitively buried with the inscription `another angel in heaven.`The society of money and exploitation has never been charged, so far as I know, with assuring the triumph of freedom and justice. Police states have never been suspected of opening schools of law in the cellars where they interrogate their subjects. So, when they oppress and exploit, they are merely doing their job, and whoever blindly entrusts them with the care of freedom has no right to be surprised when she is immediately dishonoured. If freedom is humiliated or in chains today, it is not because her enemies had recourse to treachery. It is simply because she has lost her natural protector. Yes, freedom is widowed, but it must be added because it is true: she is widowed of all of us.

Freedom is the concern of the oppressed, and her natural protectors have always come from the oppressed. In feudal Europe the communes maintained the ferments of freedom; those who assured her fleeting triumph in 1789 were the inhabitants of towns and cities; and since the nineteenth century the workers’ movements have assumed responsibility for the double honour of freedom and justice, without ever dreaming of saying that they were irreconcilable. Labourers, both manual and intellectual, are the ones who gave a body to freedom and helped her progress in the world until she has become the very basis of our thought, the air we cannot do without, that we breathe without even noticing it until the time comes when, deprived of it, we feel that we are dying. And if freedom is regressing today throughout such a large part of the world, this is probably because the devices for enslavement have never been so cynically chosen or so effective, but also because her real defenders, through fatigue, through despair, or through a false idea of strategy and efficiency, have turned away from her. Yes, the great event of the twentieth century was the forsaking of the values of freedom by the revolutionary movement, the progressive retreat of socialism based on freedom before the attacks of a Caesarian and military socialism. Since that moment a certain hope has disappeared from the world and a solitude has begun for each ad every free man.

When, after Marx, the rumour began to spread and gain strength that freedom was a bourgeois hoax, a single word was misplaced in that definition, and we are still paying for that mistake through the convulsions of our time. For it should have been said merely that bourgeois freedom was a hoax – and not all freedom. It should have been said simply that bourgeois freedom was not freedom or, in the best of cases, was not yet freedom. But that there were liberties to be won and never to be relinquished again. It is quite true that there is no possible freedom for the man tied to his lathe all day long who, when evening comes, crowds into a single room with his family. But this fact condemns a class, a society and the slavery it assumes, not freedom itself, without which the poorest among us cannot get along. For even if society were suddenly transformed and became decent and comfortable for all, it would still be a barbarous state unless freedom triumphed. And because bourgeois society talks about freedom without practising it, must the world of workers also give up practising it and boast merely of not talking about it? Yet the confusion took place and in the revolutionary movement freedom was gradually condemned because bourgeois society used it as a hoax. From a justifiable and healthy distrust of the way that bourgeois society prostituted freedom, people came to distrust freedom itself. At best, it was, postponed to the end of time, with the request that meanwhile it be not talked about. The contention was that we needed justice first and that we would come top freedom later on, as if slaves could ever hope to achieve justice. And forceful intellectuals announced to the worker that bread alone interested him rather than freedom, as if the worker didn’t know that his bread depends in part on his freedom. And, to be sure, in the face of the prolonged injustice of bourgeois society, the temptation to go to such extremes was great. After all, there is probably not one of us here who, either in deed or in thought, did not succumb. But history has progressed, and what we have seen must now make us think things over.

The revolution brought about by workers succeeded in 1917 and marked the dawn of real freedom and the greatest hope the world has known. But that revolution, surrounded from the outside, threatened within and without, provided itself with a police force. Inheriting a definition and a doctrine that pictured freedom as suspect, the revolution little by little became stronger, and the world’s greatest hope hardened into the world’s most efficient dictatorship. The false freedom of bourgeois society has not suffered meanwhile. What was killed in the Moscow trials and elsewhere, and in the revolutionary camps, what is assassinated when in Hungary a railway worker is shot for some professional mistake, is not bourgeois freedom but rather the freedom of 1917. Bourgeois freedom can meanwhile have recourse to all possible hoaxes. The trials and perversions of revolutionary society furnish it at one and the same time with a good conscience and with arguments against its enemies.

In conclusion, the characteristic of the world we live in is just that cynical dialectic which sets up injustice against enslavement while strengthening one by the other. When we admit to the palace of culture Franco, the friend of Goebbels and of Himmler- Franco, the real victor of the Second World War – to those who protest that the rights of man inscribed in the charter of UNESCO are turned to ridicule every day in Franco’s prisons we reply without smiling that Poland figure’s in UNESCO too and that, as far as public freedom is concerned, one is no better than the other. An idiotic argument, of course! If you were so unfortunate as to marry your elder daughter to a sergeant in a battalion of ex-convicts, this is no reason why you should marry off her younger sister to the most elegant detective on the society squad; one black sheep in the family is enough. And yet the idiotic argument works, as is proved to us every day. When anyone brings up the slave in the colonies and calls for justice, he is reminded of prisoners in Russian concentration camps, and vice versa. And if you protest against the assassination in Prague of an opposition historian like Kalandra, two or three American Negroes are thrown in your face. In such a disgusting attempt at outbidding, one thing only does not change – the victim, who is always the same. A single value is constantly outraged or prostituted – freedom – and then we notice that everywhere, together with freedom, justice is also profaned.

How then can this infernal circle be broken? Obviously, it can be done only by reviving at once, in ourselves and in others, the value of freedom – and by never again agreeing to its being sacrificed, even temporarily, or separated from our demand for justice. The current motto for all of us can only be this: without giving up anything on the plane of justice, yield nothing on the plane of freedom. In particular, the few democratic liberties we still enjoy are not unimportant illusions that we can allow to be taken from us without a protest. They represent exactly what remains to us of the great revolutionary conquests of the last two centuries. Hence they are not, as so many clever demagogues tell us, the negation of true freedom. There is no ideal freedom that will someday be given us all at once, as a pension comes at the end of one’s life. There are liberties to be won painfully, one by one, and those we still have are stages – most certainly inadequate, but stages nevertheless – on the way to total liberation. If we agree to suppress them, we do not progress nonetheless. On the contrary, we retreat, we go backward, and someday we shall have to retrace our steps along that road, but that new effort will once more be made in the sweat and blood of men.

No, choosing freedom today does not mean ceasing to be a profiteer of the Soviet regime and becoming a profiteer of the bourgeois regime. For that would amount, instead, to choosing slavery twice and, as a final condemnation, choosing it twice for others. Choosing freedom is not, as we are told, choosing against justice. On the other hand, freedom is chosen today in relation to those who are everywhere suffering and fighting, and this is the only freedom that counts. It is chosen at the same time as justice, and, to tell the truth, henceforth we cannot choose one without the other. If someone takes away your bread, he suppresses your freedom at the same time. But if someone takes away your freedom, you may be sure that your bread is threatened, for it depends no longer on you and your struggle but on the whim of a master. Poverty increases insofar as freedom retreats throughout the world, and vice versa. And if this cruel century has taught us anything at all, it has taught that the economic revolution must be free just as liberation must include the economic. The oppressed want to be liberated not only from their hunger but also from their masters. They are well aware that they will be effectively freed of hunger only when they hold their masters, all their masters, at bay.

I shall add in conclusion that separating freedom from justice is tantamount to separating culture and labour, which is the epitome of the social sin. The confusion of the workers’ movement in Europe springs in part from the fact that it has lost its real home, where it took comfort after all defeats, which was its faith in freedom. But, likewise, the confusion of European intellectuals springs from the fact that the double hoax, bourgeois and pseudo-revolutionary, separated them from their sole source of authenticity, the work and suffering of all, cutting them off from their sole natural allies, the workers. Insofar as I am concerned, I have recognised only two aristocracies, that of labour and that of the intelligence, and I know now that it is mad and criminal to try to make one dominate the other. I know that the two of them constitute but a single nobility, that their truth and, above all, their effectiveness lie in union; I know that if they are separated, they will allow themselves to be overcome gradually by the forces of tyranny and barbarousness, but that united, on the other hand, they will govern the world. This is why any undertaking that aims to loosen their ties and separate them is directed against man and his loftiest hopes. The first concern of any dictatorship is, consequently, to subjugate both labour and culture. In fact, both must be gagged or else, as tyrants are well aware, sooner or later one will speak up for the other. Thus, in my opinion, there are two ways for an intellectual to betray at present, and in both cases he betrays because he accepts a single thing – that separation between labour and culture. The first way is characteristic of bourgeois intellectuals who are willing that their privileges should be paid for by the enslavement of the workers. They often say that they are defending freedom, but they are defending first of all the privileges freedom gives to them, and to them alone¹. The second way is characteristic of intellectuals who think they are leftist and who, through distrust of freedom, are willing that culture, and the freedom it presupposes, should be directed, under the vain pretext of serving a future justice. In both cases the profiteers of injustice and the renegades of freedom ratify and sanction the separation of intellectual and manual labour which condemns both labour and culture to impotence. They deprecate at one and the same time both freedom and justice.

It is true that freedom, when it is made up principally of privileges, insults labour and separates it from culture. But freedom is not made up principally of privileges; it is made up especially of duties. And the moment each of us tries to give freedom’s duties precedence over its privileges, freedom joins together labour and culture and sets in motion the only force that can effectively serve justice. The rule of our action, the secret of our resistance can be easily stated: everything that humiliates labour also humiliates the intelligence, and vice versa. And the revolutionary struggle, the centuries-old straining toward liberation can be defined first of all as a double and constant rejection of humiliation.

To tell the truth, we have not yet cast off that humiliation. But the wheel turns, history changes, and a time is coming, I am sure, when we shall cease to be alone. For me, our gathering here today is in itself a sign. The fact that members of unions gather together and crowd around our freedoms to defend them is indeed reason enough for all to come here from all directions to illustrate their union and their hope. The way ahead of us is long. Yet if war does not come and mingle everything in its hideous confusion, we shall have time at last to give a form to the justice and freedom we need. But to achieve that we must henceforth categorically refuse, without anger but irrevocably, the lies with which we have been stuffed. No, freedom is not founded on concentration camps, or on the subjugated peoples of the colonies, or on the workers’ poverty! No, the doves of peace do not perch on gallows! No, the forces of freedom cannot mingle the sons of the victims with the executioners of Madrid and elsewhere! Of tat, at least, we shall henceforth be sure, as we shall be sure that freedom is not a gift received from a State or a leader but a possession to be won every day by the effort of each and union of all.

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1And, besides, most of the time they do not even defend freedom the moment there is any risk in doing so.

So I've been watching; Dallos

 

So I've been watching Dallos. Dallos is an early science fiction OVA series, considered the first OVA by some in fact. I stumbled upon it flicking through anime reviews by the youtube channel Kaiserbeamz. I'll link the video as it will save some time. 

The video explains the history of the production and its impact on Japan's home video market better than I could. I will briefly outline the show itself, any way to help ground my thoughts. KaiserBeamz mentioned that the show was commissioned in part to compete with and enjoy the market share of the still young Gundam franchise. And over its four episode run I can see clear inspiration's. This is a world where the Earth is in a lot of trouble, and the way it resolves the crisis was to colonise the earth system. Though instead of floating colony cities, human has built settlements on the Moon. There is also an Earth Federation ruling humanity, and like in Gundam it is corrupt and is exploiting the people who live on the Moon, and their main enemy is a rebelling group of space born humans who want independence. 

Dallos also has mechanised vehicles that are similar to Gundam's mobile suits. Though mostly construction and mining suits, and the police use transforming bipedal walkers. 

The plot of the four episodes of Dallos are about class warfare. The conflict is between the representatives of the Earth Federation who use violence and armed force to maintain control, and the communities of Miners led by Dog (or Doug in the English release) McCoy. The people of the Moon are overwhelmingly discontented with their lot, but McCoy leads a small band willing to take violent action to end it. McCoy hopes to inspire the majority of the Moon's inhabitants to join the struggle. Interestingly, despite being science fiction and about insurrection, the combat doesn't overtake the story. 

McCoy's main strategy is to rally the workers into staging a general strike that will cut off earth from the resources the Moon provides, this will force the Earth Federation to take notice and hopefully make concessions. The street battles and raids on police armouries are to show that resistance is possible and to build up the military strength to resist attacks by the police and the Earth army while the pressure builds. The response by the colonial government is brutal and heavy-handed, attempting to crush the growing rebellion with greater force. It's this violent reaction coupled with the authorities' inability to finish off the resistance that radicalises more of the Moon population. 

One action in particular pushes the older generation who originally came from Earth and still have connections to it over to the side of resistance. And that is the attack on Dallos, the mysterious structure on the surface of the Moon. McCoy and his group shelter within it, and the police attack damages it. Many Moon citizens, especially the older ones, have come to worship Dallos as a sort of local deity, so they don't take kindly to the armed police firing missiles on it. This gives McCoy and the resistance the numbers they need to halt work at all the mines, which quickly depletes the ore processing and gets the attention of the Federation. Their response is to deploy a garrison to support the police and continue attacking rebel strongholds. During a battle, Dallos repairs itself and attacks and devastates both sides.

With Dallos restored miners start drifting back to work, and with both sides mauled a stalemate of sorts is created, and that's where the show stops. I get a strong sense that Dallos was supposed to be a pilot miniseries for a bigger franchise, either a full series or a movie or something. I don't know if that was the intention, but it would explain the last few minutes, both the main Colonial governor and McCoy predict future conflict and the tensions haven't been resolved.

Overall, I have some mixed feelings about Dallos. I'm impressed it didn't devolve liberation struggles into an action set piece with an impossibly skilled protagonist, and the battle scenes it did have were beautiful and took advantage of the setting, there are some excellent low gravity action scenes here. But there are a lot of shortcomings. For example, I have not mentioned the protagonist of Dallos, that's partly because I'm more interested in the depictions of class conflict than I was in its actual plot, but also because he left such little impression on me that I forgot his name. He's a young adolescent whose brother was killed in mysterious circumstances and has a sort of love triangle with his friend and the beautiful VIP from Earth who becomes a hostage of the rebels. Nothing ground breaking, though I did appreciate that he quickly makes a firm choice to support the rebellion instead of being conflicted and dragged around the conflict by plot convenience like some protagonists.

And Dallos itself is honestly more hindrance than asset here. At first, it's mysterious and intriguing, but we don't anything about it and its place as a deity despite its obvious alien and constructed nature is baffling. I suspect if a continuation was commissioned, the revelations of Dallos would've been key to the plot, but its potential is wasted.

Albert the Workers Representative

 

A short video clip from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) popped up on my twitter timeline.

Rep. @AOC: “It’s just really wild to be a person that works in a corrupt institution, which is what Congress is, and to try and be a normal person surrounded by so much decay and moral emptiness, that frankly transcends party, is very difficult.” pic.twitter.com/x9hqvvpq8Y

— The Hill (@thehill) June 4, 2022

“It’s just really wild to be a person that works in a corrupt institution, which is what Congress is, and to try and be a normal person surrounded by so much decay and moral emptiness, that frankly transcends party, is very difficult.”

AOC is clearly frustrated with the realities of the political system in the United States of America. I sympathise but not really surprised. Curiously, reading the quoted snippet my mind turned to an overlooked pioneer in the history of socialism, Alexndre Martin. Alexandre Martin is better known, though just barely, by the name Albert l'Ouvrier, which in English means Albert the Worker. The Worker, is a reference to the fact that he was the first industrial worker, a mechanic to be precise, to become a Deputy of the National Assembly in France. I've even seen a few sources claim he was the first industrial worker to reach such a station in the world, but I'm unsure of how accurate that is.

As to why he was called Albert instead of Alexandre, I have no idea. Regardless, Albert was born in 1815 and held a series of jobs in the workshops of Paris. He was a participant in the 1830 Revolution which toppled the restored Bourbon monarchy and replaced it with House or Orleans. Initially this new King established a more liberal period, but it didn't take long for the July Monarchy[1] to disillusion segments of the population and sporadic demonstrations and minor insurrections soon broke out. Les Miserables has a fictional account of one of these insurrections, the republican revolt of 1832. 

Albert joined several clubs and secret societies during the July Monarchy's existence. At this time restrictions on openly political organisations and workers associations were extreme, so most of the disaffected students and workers had to organise social clubs and secret meetings to compensate. By 1848 when the July Monarchy collapsed into violent street clashes most republican and socialist politicians had started organising open air banquets to get around bans on open air demonstrations. Albert was arrested during this period on at least one occasion but was soon released. Not much is known about him during this period given his obscurity and clandestine activity, but at some point in 1839 he became a leader of the Nouvelles Saisons (New Seasons) Society. Apart from Albert's connections to the society I haven't been able to find out much on it. There is a Saisons Society active in another failed insurrection in Paris in 1839, this could be the same group or the Nouvelles (New) could be an acknowledgement that it was a successor group. Slightly better documented was Albert becoming the editor for the socialist newspaper L'Atelier (The Workshop) in 1840.

Tensions continued to mount and by 1848 they exploded. In February an insurrection in Paris successfully toppled the July Monarchy and returned France to republican rule. Elections were quickly held and a group of radicals passed through the lists to become Deputies in the new National Assembly. Albert was one of them, and the name Albert the Worker is used extensively in official documentation as well as in the contemporary press. Albert was part of a group of socialist politicians that were loosely led by Louis Blanc. 

Albert and his allies were immediately faced with a question quite similar to what AOC is currently struggling with. How do you govern in the interests of the workers, when the very institutions and forms of governance are in open conflict with that aim? Albert and Blanc initially tried to solve this by essentially running a parallel government through the Luxembourg Commission. The Luxembourg Commission was a six man institution established by the National Assembly after armed workers stormed one of their sessions on the 25th of February demanding that their needs be addressed immediately. Chiefly these demands were for right to organise labour and the right to work. 

The Luxembourg Commissions remit was to investigate social ills like unemployment and propose solutions. But due to opposition from the Assembly's conservative and bourgeois deputies and the popularity the Commission enjoyed from the workers' districts of Paris, including the support of armed militias, the Commission quickly became more active and bypassed the Assembly and ran multiple programs on its own initiative. The Commission's main reform was the establishment of `National Workshops` which were in essence an early example of government work programs.

"The provisional government of the French Republic undertakes to guarantee the existence of the workmen by work. It undertakes to guarantee work for every citizen."

But even with the support of the masses and the backing of armed force this state within a state as some historians have called it ran into a series of issues, the payment for work was low, the availability of work was also in scarce supply. And to even be eligible for support from a National Workshop a worker had to get permits and registration from multiple authorities including their landlords, police and mayor. And furthermore the balance of power kept slipping away from the left wing of the Assembly.

By June of 1848 the Assembly felt strong enough to close down the workshops and further weaken the Commission. In desperation and outrage many workers took up arms in Paris. Albert had lost his faith in the political process and joined demonstrations by the workers along with Louis Auguste Blanqui and Armand Barbes. The rebellion was quickly defeated by General Cavaignac, several thousand were killed and more were exiled to colonies. Albert and Barbes were captured at the Hotel de Ville and both were imprisoned. 

Albert was pardoned as part of a general amnesty in 1859. He seems to have lost his support for socialism, as on release he took a job at a gas works and remained there until his death in 1895. During the Franco-Prussian war he was briefly active on the barricade committees established by the Government of National Defence that was established after the defeat and capture of the Emperor Napoleon III. He also stood twice for election to its National Assembly in 1870, he failed on both occasions. From what I can gather, he appears to have played no part whatsoever in the Paris Commune that was established the following year in 1871, and he was not swept up in the bloody repression of radical workers that followed its defeat.

Since 1848 the global socialist movement has attempted to emulate the example of Blanc and Albert. Workers Representatives have successfully obtained high office under all manner of circumstances, from election wins, abdication crises, civil war and coup d'etat. And we have had proponents of nearly every strand of its vibrant tapestry. There have been republican socialist ministers, Christian socialist prime ministers, Deputies representing Fabianism, Fourier, hundreds of schools of Marxism, a smattering of fellow travellers to Anarchism, and curious hybrids of all the above, and a couple that defy easy categorisation. 

And, yet all of them from the 1800s to this very day have just like Albert ran straight into this dilemma, and have struggled to overcome it. This should be a key question for everyone who wants to end the old state of things. But curiously for many it rarely gets on the radar. Thousands, even millions of dedicated people will just bounce from one vehicle to another with barely any reflection. Momentum and the rest of the Labour left wing in the UK and the Democratic Socialists of America are currently stalled and quite possibly doomed movements because they made the political careers of two politicians, Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, the main thrust of their activism and political vision. When both of them failed in their bids for power the movements stopped moving. Despite several years passing these two groups are still struggling to decide what to do now?

But even if these two had succeeded in their quests for power would there be any difference? The plight of Albert is just one of many definitive answers, Non. Partisan allegiance set aside, the socialist movement in its totality is an extremely diverse subject to study. And yet despite it representing the activity and participation of millions of people across the globe and across the centuries, this infinite diversity has yet to provide an example of a Socialist President, or a Communist Parliament, or an Anarchist ministry that means something beyond a label. 

Given Albert's humble background and the context of much of his political development, I'm not surprised he's been regarded as a bit of footnote and trivia. But given that it has been over a hundred years since he made his contributions to socialist politics, and we're still chasing our tails, he might be worth keeping in mind.

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1: So-called because the 1830 Revolution occurred in July

 

Premiums

 

I've been moved around the factory a bit last week. I spent two relaxing shifts in what appears to be the company's loading bay of broken toys. But sadly it didn't last, I was moved back to the fast paced sections. In shop talk, I briefly mentioned that factory work is the area with the highest number of disabled and English second language workers I've encountered in my work life. This impression has been confirmed, and it's also the only workplace I've been employed at where migrant workers can be found in some roles of responsibility. Very few were in the higher paid more respected, looks good on the CV and attracts the headhunters positions. Mostly they're in positions of seniority that don't really have any perks other than respect from the rest of the line, so I don't want to give the false impression that it's meritocratic, but it was a little surprising to me at first.

Haven't seen many disabled workers in those positions, though. In fact, looking back, the only times I've encountered a disabled worker in a position of some authority it's someone with mobility issues in a clerical role, admin or payroll usually. There is also a degree of well-intentioned humouring of the more obviously disabled staff, which well isn't great, but I haven't seen any of the warning signs of more vicious and aggressive attitudes that I've encountered in other work places.

I may have more thoughts on these as I go on, or I may not, we'll see.

I did a shift on one of the premium lines, I said in shop talk that I was able to roughly calculate how much labour I needed to accomplish to be profitable for my employer, and it wasn't much. Well, a friendly acquaintance who'd been on the premium lines before told me that the stuff we were making that day routinely sells for £20. Now I can't confirm that, I guess I go to the wrong shops, but I have no reason to doubt him. So, again factoring costs, let's estimate about £10 or so of each sale goes into the pockets of the company which owns the factory. So, within 10 minutes of clocking in, I had been a profitable resource for the company.

The pace was very fast, so fast in fact that even in overalls and nets I was obviously struggling to keep up, so the supervisor put me on another station on the line. My job without going into detail[1], was to feed the containers into the line. So again, very easy stuff, though there were knacks, but without this easy step, no product could be assembled and nothing could be sold for profit.

The national minimum wage has risen in the UK recently, I remember employers were complaining, but once the deadline passed they all adapted pretty quickly. I can't think of a large employer that went under or noticeably downsized because of the increase. When I worked on the docks, a similar thing happened with workers militancy. The companies would keep trying to enforce new conditions on the densely unionised workforces, and it would pretty close to strike action sometimes, but it never did get far because the companies stood down, and within a week or two had somehow found the money to pay for wage rises and spending on workplace improvements that they were swearing blind could not be found and bankruptcy would follow.

This isn't news to anyone really, but I remembered reading that traditionally the number one demand a workforce could make that would practically guarantee the most violent strong arm tactics from the employers wasn't wage increases (no matter how high) or improvements or even changes to hiring practices, it was reductions in work days and shift lengths. And, I can see why that's the case. Even though in terms of real sums for the workers the money is negligible, reduction in work hours cut into the ratio of profit from labour.

On this premium line, in order for the company to break even on its costs, I'd go home after half an hour tops. I shudder to think how much they'd make off of me after twelve hours on that line.

Addendum-

Anyone can do this pal

I was talking to a friend who has moved to London and had a bit of a turbulent job history in the month or so since the move. She has had to bounce from multiple jobs. She has no issue getting them, the problem is they're very casual, short term or just abruptly announce they won't be extending contracts. There is more stable work with a much greater probability of long term employment, but a lot of it is factory work similar to what I've been doing. The issue is that she can do most of the work in the roles available, most people are capable of at least some position or role in a modern factory setting, but there's a difference between being capable and being profitably capable.

I think I've shown just how quickly most productive enterprises cover their costs and make a profit off their workforce, but it's not enough to be profitable, they want the maximum amount of profitability feasible. This is the root of a lot of the workplace difficulties in manufacturing stem from. From feelings of isolation in the very layout of the workspace, to exhaustion and even injury preforming your duties. You may well have doubled the companies' investment in you after an hour of work, but the lines don't stop then, you have to keep up the pace for hour after hour.

That's a big sacrifice, it's difficult to explain what this constant and unrelenting demand has on those who haven't experienced it. I find it to be another example of a key problem with the capitalist system of work, it's not interested in fulfilling any genuine needs it just maximizes potentials for profit regardless of the costs to people, the environment or even its own viability in the long term. It's wasteful in the extreme.

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[1] I've decided to be vague both for security reasons, but also because I think getting too specific might undermine the purpose of these blogs, which if they have a blueprint is to be a general commentary on work life

[2]  there are always knacks