Attached: 1 video
Before we judge Gen Z harshly for their take on the grind of work, as a Boomer I’m here to remind you that Dolly wrote the same message over 40 years ago in “9 to 5”:
“Workin' 9 to 5
What a way to make livin'
Barely gettin' by
It's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind
And you never get the credit
It's enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it”
#GenZ #labor #work #employment #capitalism #DollyParton #union
The youngest age cohort is currently the only with any broad class consciousness.
Older generations, the ones that endured the depression and fought the two wars on either side, were fiercely class conscious, entirely aware that the wealth of society that they were generating was being stolen by the greedy parasitic class of owners.
Ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, it was common, after finishing school, for someone enthusiastically to sell the entirety of one’s being, body, mind, and all, to the corporate masters, imagining such enthusiasm as making oneself superior to peers, providing a guarantee to outpace all of them in the promotions and purchases that would mark the milestones of life.
The lies and mythology by now have become too obvious not to notice by anyone not already traumatized by the severest indoctrination and self delusion.
The system is unfair and unstable. Some workers trample other workers, only that we all may be trampled by our rulers, gratefully of course.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, as well as the whole Anti-Vietnam War movement, were both associated with Boomers ('63 would have had some young boomers), and were both heavily class conscious. I think on one hand you had industrialization as well as “strong unions” at this time, which Boomers took for granted as they entered the workforce. Simultaneously the institutions in the US were weeding out and destroying the notion of class in any analysis of public life and political economy. Within this context you get the neoliberal revolution in the 70s-80s, a bipartisan consensus towards the machine of the political economy, and then deindustrialization and the shift to service economy, which hollows out vast holes in the working class. In combination with the Taft-Hartley act the workers have no politics to address changing this political economic arrangement, and politics instead becomes focused on the things that are on the table, like culture war, identity politics, etc. We’ve been stuck on the train ever since, and even with the crisis of neoliberalism, the parts still function and our politics becomes this increasingly absurd spectacle focusing on cultural signifiers around the rotting corpse of the neoliberal consensus, leading towards doom.
The youngest age cohort is currently the only with any broad class consciousness.
Older generations, the ones that endured the depression and fought the two wars on either side, were fiercely class conscious, entirely aware that the wealth of society that they were generating was being stolen by the greedy parasitic class of owners.
Ten, twenty, or thirty years ago, it was common, after finishing school, for someone enthusiastically to sell the entirety of one’s being, body, mind, and all, to the corporate masters, imagining such enthusiasm as making oneself superior to peers, providing a guarantee to outpace all of them in the promotions and purchases that would mark the milestones of life.
The lies and mythology by now have become too obvious not to notice by anyone not already traumatized by the severest indoctrination and self delusion.
The system is unfair and unstable. Some workers trample other workers, only that we all may be trampled by our rulers, gratefully of course.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, as well as the whole Anti-Vietnam War movement, were both associated with Boomers ('63 would have had some young boomers), and were both heavily class conscious. I think on one hand you had industrialization as well as “strong unions” at this time, which Boomers took for granted as they entered the workforce. Simultaneously the institutions in the US were weeding out and destroying the notion of class in any analysis of public life and political economy. Within this context you get the neoliberal revolution in the 70s-80s, a bipartisan consensus towards the machine of the political economy, and then deindustrialization and the shift to service economy, which hollows out vast holes in the working class. In combination with the Taft-Hartley act the workers have no politics to address changing this political economic arrangement, and politics instead becomes focused on the things that are on the table, like culture war, identity politics, etc. We’ve been stuck on the train ever since, and even with the crisis of neoliberalism, the parts still function and our politics becomes this increasingly absurd spectacle focusing on cultural signifiers around the rotting corpse of the neoliberal consensus, leading towards doom.
However, in 1963, the oldest Boomers were still not yet adult.