“In a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – George Orwell
“Well I woke up this morning…” as legendary blues numbers are won’t to have it. Normally my next line would be something along the lines of “and all I had to look forward to was a day of wage slavery, peasantry, knowing my place and making a profit for “The Man”. I’ve never worked out who The Man is and also why it/they is of the spear rather than distaff persuasion. Then again I know my place so such questions are forbidden to me lest I be labelled a raging Trot subversive pinko agitator. Those guys are the worst, right?
I’m reliably informed that, instead of challenging the status quo and thinking for myself I should concentrate on being more ‘productive’. “Produce”, “Productive”, “Productivity”. Whatever these terms mean, I should be doing that. No question. Although I do have one question. What am I expected to do about it?
I remember being dandled on my Grandfather’s knee and being told that the workers should seize the means of production. I wasn’t sure who those worker fellas were or what production was but he had a steely glint in his bright blue eyes and a conviction in his baritone voice so I knew it had to be worth taking notice of. Nowadays with my progenitor long gone and facing the prospect at some point of being tasked with passing on such wisdom myself I wonder how I will go about such a chore. How does one explain it? Let’s take “Productivity”. Often talked about in the media, sold to the plebeians as absolutely crucial, an unquestionable corner stone of life under capitalism and a bloody good thing for us all. Yes – unquestionably.
Except the iconoclast in me does have (another) question. What is it and what does it mean? Okay – two (other) questions. “Productivity” is this: efficiency in producing goods and services which is measured in the ratio of output to input. In other words getting more out than is put in. And what is put in – well raw materials of course but more crucially to us here is labour. Labour is effort and work rate. That’s the toil that you and I have to exert in order to produce. Our reward for that is a monetary wage – no work no wage. But, again crucially, the wage is a huge factor in the above equation. You could be paid ten quid to produce the goods or services that is your line of work. That is then sold on. However if your fellow worker is only paid five quid then that represents better productivity because the outcome is a better ratio. Naturally those who own the means of production will go for the second option every time. And this is because they themselves are outside of this system. They are not producing anything per se but merely facilitating the process. I’m not sure that that is entirely fair. I’m given to thinking that it should be fairer. Here’s an old joke with which you might be familiar:
A Worker is working in a warehouse – stacking pallets, booking goods in and out, checking quality control. One day, The Boss of the warehouse turns up in a brand new Porsche and parks outside the warehouse doors. “Nice car” opines The Worker. “Yes it is” replies The Boss. “I’ll tell you what – keep working hard, be more productive, don’t ask too many questions and do you know what? “What?” says The Worker. “Well do all that and next year, NEXT YEAR, I can have another one”.
Productivity. That’s how we judge ourselves as a society. Or rather that’s how we are judged. I’d have thought that given we are now in the 21st Century CE that we could have found a better solution. Like most of you I am enamoured with the ancient Greek philosophers. One lazy Sunday afternoon (it’s my anti-productive day off) I was perusing the ideas of Diogenes. Smart guy. Operating around the third century BCE he refused to accept the prevailing ideas of the time which were, to summarise: ‘arete’ or virtue – usefulness and public service, ‘polis’ – the expectation of public service and ‘schole’ (the root of the word ‘school’) – leisure time set aside for thinking and conversation. In a society built upon these tenets he rebelled and did everything possible to live his life outside of the mainstream.
Maybe we should all be little more like Diogenes. He was described as ‘lazy’ since he undertook no work of any kind. But he took that to an art form not because he didn’t need stuff but because he refused to be dictated to in his societally determined needs. He lived in a large pottery barrel/jug and begged for food and sustenance. Essentially he said a big ‘fuck you’ to the prevailing system and lived on his own terms. He took ‘schole’ to its logical outcome – do nothing else BUT think and converse and come up with ideas and debate them. I suppose in that sense he was, ironically, quite productive. The fact that he used to eat, sleep, masturbate and defecate in public is, however, not something I’m necessarily advocating but whatever floats your individual boat. The point is that as individual thinkers we could all come up with better ways to run things. We could all have a say. We could all discuss and debate and ruminate. If, having done so, we could share that stuff and come to an accord on what works best for us all that would be a good thing. We couldn’t just seize the means of production, we could define the meaning of productivity.
