As the subject of the Occupy movement comes up more and more in conversations, I often hear apparently well-intentioned yet seemingly self-righteous comments from employed people that claim that they work hard for what they earn while those protestors are just lazy and need to get a job (or two).
One of the common threads that I hear in dialogue is the misunderstanding of the corelation of hard work with earned income. It seems to me that it is an oversimplification to assume that hard work of itself or even primarily is what determines the value of one's wage or earned income.
It seems to me that one's economic value would be determined by where one lives, as in what part of the world or what city or neighborhood one grew up in or now resides in, access to quality education, who one's parents are, a strong support system of family, mentors, etc., nepotism, being lucky as in being in the right place at the right time for opportunities along the way, and of course, hard work.
Looking at one's economic value surely takes on a much different perspective when taking all of these things into consideration, doesn't it? It is a very humbling experience to realize that our hard work doesn't always produce the results that we desire. No man (or woman) is an island, that is for sure. The person that believes that their own efforts solely create their economic value in this world is certainly making a naive assumption.
Ask most people who understand how circumstances beyond one's control and politics fit in to the picture for instance, especially the unemployed single person looking for good living wage work who has lost something major like their home, their job, career, pension, health insurance or other benefits, and has worked for decades to build their personal capital, and get their story. You'll probably discover that what they have experienced and understand earned income to be involves a lot more than hard work and most likely they won't give you that 'I work hard and the lazy people need to get off their butts and get a job' story.
Occupy Outreach on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Occupy-Outreach/141679115935494
1 Comment
Indeed, this country (and
Submitted by cryptomnesiac on
Indeed, this country (and world) is by no stretch of the imagination a meritocracy. There are too many factors, too many speculative schemes, and too much momentum behind the already wealthy (who actively sabotage and undermine the average person's wages, or the social programs the poor depend on).
When people point to success story x, or y, or z, they seem oblivious to the reality that those are the exceptions. The statistics show how badly most people are doing, and so probability is against any one person pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Talking about Steve Jobs, you might as well cite a lottery winner, and ask everyone to do that. It didn't used to be that everyone was expected to perform some impossible feat to survive in this country, but now people seem to take it for granted. But it's an exploitative joke. Most working people are more productive than ever, and yet struggling to get by. Now they're supposed to curry favor with the emporer so their family will be spared. Americans need to find their dignity and their fucking balls.
Mike C.
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