Way To Go?

The workplace, in most cases, is really nothing more than an extension of the state. Would the average corporation or company exist as we know it without state support? Highly doubtful. Remove the state's protection in the form of regulations, licensing, intellectual "property" laws, "ownership" of buildings, machinery and land, and what have you got? Something far different from the control that is exercised over the lowly wage slave today, that's what.

Everybody must play the capitalist game, however, and pretend that it's legitimate, and more than legitimate, that it's moral and right and good, and that to oppose the game being played, to refuse to want to participate in it, means you're lazy, a "slacker", a good for nothing looking of a free ride. etc.

The idea that hierarchy in the workplace is justified is reinforced by constant, unrelenting propaganda. Dissent at your peril. The bosses must know what they're doing, even when they are obviously total incompetents. But if you play by the rules, you might climb the ladder yourself, make more money, have more power over the other slaves.

Way to go! Shouted the email. One of the assistants (leads) sent it out. You've set a new record! Yes, you're more productive than everyone else. The message is clear. Serve your masters well and you'll be rewarded, if not monetarily, than with lavish, ego-stroking praise. Kill yourself and work yourself to death for the company, even though you have no ownership in it.

The manager responded to the obsequious lead's game-playing email with one of his own. Congratulations! You set a goal and achieved it! Then followed an avalanche of Good Jobs! and Yes, you're Awesomes! from the other wage slaves.

Many of those replying had their eyes on promotions of their own. The promise, however false it may be, of a little more money and a little more power, is the rotten carrot dangled in front of the peons, just like the never ending threat of being fired is always hanging over their heads like the sword of Damocles.

Well, you can take your "good job" and your "way to go" and shove it! Without the state, the workplace would be controlled by the workers, and the boss would be just one more associate, with no more say than anyone else.

So management, take your crumbs and throw them to the dogs. Real humans don't want them. THEY WANT THE WHOLE MEAL, NOT YOUR SCRAPS! They want liberty and freedom and equality and an end to your arbitrary hierarchies.

So workers (and bosses) stop playing the game and start listening instead to your heart, the instinct that tells you that something is terribly wrong and unjust about the system you live and work under.

Because continuing to play the game is definitely not the "way to go".