Comrade-Z
16th May 2006, 03:19
I think this CrimethInc. article (from the Winter 2006 Rolling Thunder) does a good job of demonstrating how much power ordinary people have to keep The System going--or to shut it down. I like especially the argument that it makes with the title, showing how one is implicated in one's own oppression and the oppression of others if one willingly participates as a cog in The Machine.
I have edited this article slightly in order to remove nutball primitivist stuff and inject the second-to-last paragraph.
IF YOU DON'T STEAL FROM YOUR BOSS
YOU'RE STEALING FROM YOUR FAMILY
Employees keep this country working.
They crowd into offices and factories every morning.
They convert forests into junk mail, and deliver that junk mail.
They dump toxic waste into rivers, lakes, and oceans.
Employees are destroying the ozone layer.
Employees are driving species after species into extinction.
Employees throw away truckloads of food rather than share with the hungry.
Employees drive homeless people out of heated buildings into the snow.
They watch your every move through security cameras.
They evict you when you don't pay your rent.
They imprison you when you don't pay your taxes.
They publicly humiliate you when you don't do your homework or make it to work on time.
They disinterestedly enter information about your private life into credit reports and FBI files.
They give you parking tickets and speeding tickets.
They administer standardized exams, reform schools, and lethal injections.
The soldiers that herded people into gas chambers were employees.
As are the soldiers currently occupying Iraq and Afghanistan,
As are the suicide bombers who target them--they are employees of God, if you will, hoping to be paid in paradise.
An employee is a person who is willing to give up responsibility for his actions in return for a wage, and a person is an employee to the extent to which this is the case. The Nuremburg defense--"I was just following orders"--is the anthem and alibi of the employee. Put this way, the willingness to be an employee--to be, if you will, a mercenary or a tool--lies at the root of many of the troubles plaguing our species.
Volunteers, by contrast, act on their own judgment and take responsibility for their actions. Volunteers, too, have done horrible things--but not nearly so many horrible things. You can reason with a person who is acting for herself; she acknowledges that she is accountable for her own decisions. Employees, on the other hand, will do the most unimaginably dumb and destructive things while stubbornly refusing to think about their actions at all.
When soldiers of Petrograd refused their orders to fire on crowds of demonstrators in 1917, those soldiers were refusing to be employees. When certain Soviet soldiers refused their stupid orders to crush the Hungarian workers' revolution of 1956, thought for themselves, and chose to side with the revolutionaries, those soldiers ceased being employees. When German sailors refused orders to suicidally engage the British fleet at war's end in 1918, when they refused to needlessly and stupidly sacrifice their lives for the glory of the Kaiser, when they instead set out upon their own revolutionary endeavors, they ceased being employees.
Whenever you can, refuse to be an employee--use your time, energy, and talents to do what you see fit, rather than to serve others as a mercenary. When you must, work for a wage to survive--but don't think yourself absolved of responsibility for your actions, don't obey unconscionable orders, don't lose your individuality in the ocean of competition and protocol.
WE QUIT!
I have edited this article slightly in order to remove nutball primitivist stuff and inject the second-to-last paragraph.
IF YOU DON'T STEAL FROM YOUR BOSS
YOU'RE STEALING FROM YOUR FAMILY
Employees keep this country working.
They crowd into offices and factories every morning.
They convert forests into junk mail, and deliver that junk mail.
They dump toxic waste into rivers, lakes, and oceans.
Employees are destroying the ozone layer.
Employees are driving species after species into extinction.
Employees throw away truckloads of food rather than share with the hungry.
Employees drive homeless people out of heated buildings into the snow.
They watch your every move through security cameras.
They evict you when you don't pay your rent.
They imprison you when you don't pay your taxes.
They publicly humiliate you when you don't do your homework or make it to work on time.
They disinterestedly enter information about your private life into credit reports and FBI files.
They give you parking tickets and speeding tickets.
They administer standardized exams, reform schools, and lethal injections.
The soldiers that herded people into gas chambers were employees.
As are the soldiers currently occupying Iraq and Afghanistan,
As are the suicide bombers who target them--they are employees of God, if you will, hoping to be paid in paradise.
An employee is a person who is willing to give up responsibility for his actions in return for a wage, and a person is an employee to the extent to which this is the case. The Nuremburg defense--"I was just following orders"--is the anthem and alibi of the employee. Put this way, the willingness to be an employee--to be, if you will, a mercenary or a tool--lies at the root of many of the troubles plaguing our species.
Volunteers, by contrast, act on their own judgment and take responsibility for their actions. Volunteers, too, have done horrible things--but not nearly so many horrible things. You can reason with a person who is acting for herself; she acknowledges that she is accountable for her own decisions. Employees, on the other hand, will do the most unimaginably dumb and destructive things while stubbornly refusing to think about their actions at all.
When soldiers of Petrograd refused their orders to fire on crowds of demonstrators in 1917, those soldiers were refusing to be employees. When certain Soviet soldiers refused their stupid orders to crush the Hungarian workers' revolution of 1956, thought for themselves, and chose to side with the revolutionaries, those soldiers ceased being employees. When German sailors refused orders to suicidally engage the British fleet at war's end in 1918, when they refused to needlessly and stupidly sacrifice their lives for the glory of the Kaiser, when they instead set out upon their own revolutionary endeavors, they ceased being employees.
Whenever you can, refuse to be an employee--use your time, energy, and talents to do what you see fit, rather than to serve others as a mercenary. When you must, work for a wage to survive--but don't think yourself absolved of responsibility for your actions, don't obey unconscionable orders, don't lose your individuality in the ocean of competition and protocol.
WE QUIT!