Notices by 🌈Lucy🏳️‍⚧️ | Revoluciana (revoluciana@chaosfem.tw)

The Progressive-Liberal Dilemma:

Ugh. It's not that I want to be rich, I just want enough money to be able to afford to feed this capitalist beast before it tries to eat me first.

I don't like money.

I think maybe we should stop trying to feed the capitalist beast.

The capitalist beast can never consume enough to satiate its voracious hunger.

Feeding the beast is simply a self-destructive act of futility.

Capitalism masks the act of destruction and calls it creation.

Capitalism only speaks the language of double-speak.

Capitalism abuses you, stealing your life-essence, cuts off a slice and hands it back to you for supper. It then pretends it loves you when you're left with no other alternative than to eat what is on your plate.

Why haven't you touched your plate? Are you ungrateful for all Mama Capitalism has given you? Stop crying. You wouldn't want to make Mama upset would you?

Because Mama can *give you* something to cry about.

How to Distribute Radical Shit:
*Don't Trust Your Printer*

Your printer is a snitch. It's a homing beacon for law enforcement– even offline.

My post about what to do instead:
https://www.revoluciana.net/how-to-distribute-radical-stuff/

WTF are *wages*?

"How many of you feel deeply that you deserve more for your labor, but feel helpless to demand it, or to even ask it?

Is this an agreement upon terms or is this coercion?"

Today's post:
https://www.revoluciana.net/what-are-wages/

"Let's start with the obvious:

*Wages* is a term representing money paid for work

Yes, but not good enough."

"*Wages* only exist within the context of an employer-employee relationship. So, let's try this again:

*Wages* are payments made by an employer to an employee for time spent doing labor, generally under conditions dictated by the employer."

"When an employee is paid wages, the product itself is alienated from an employee's labor and time. Despite the fact that the employee has deducted time from their life, and done all of the labor, the employee owns no share of the product, the fruits of their labor. The product is simply the property that is created as a result of labor.

The product is therefore owned by the employer, though the employer has done no labor, the employer has done nothing to create the product.

An employer is simply another term for owner."

"When you work for an employer, you might imagine that you work for your boss, but your boss may simply be a manager, another laborer who works for the company; however, it's not really the company that you work for, either. You work for the owners of the company. To put it in other terms, you work for a landlord."

"When working as a wage-laborer, you are not an owner of the product, nor are you the owner of the means of production– the factory, the tools, the land, etc. (again, these also are all things created and/or maintained by the laborers). In your capacity as a wage-laborer, you aren't even really a person– you are simply one of the expendable (and exploitable) costs of doing business."

"As a reminder, generally speaking, under the global capitalist system, and definitely in the US, companies are obligated by law to do what is in the best financial interest of their shareholders, their owners.

This means that a company is legally obligated to pay you as low of a wage as they believe the market can bear. Mind you, they are not legally obligated to give you a fair wage (whatever that would mean), and they are not legally obligated to give you a living wage, but simply just enough in order that the work gets done and the shareholders, the owners, get paid the maximum profit. Your needs and interests never enter the equation– never.

Companies are not only incentivized, but legally obligated, to make life worse for you than it otherwise could be."

"The employer-employee relationship is inherently hierarchical. For this reason alone, an #anarchist such as myself takes issue with the concept of wages, even without the economic issues raised above. When your employer has power over your livelihood, it affects your freedom and autonomy in the world, and even your ability to seek and advocate for better, both as an individual and as a member of society."

"I wonder how many of you would feel comfortable talking about this subject at work, or any of the other subjects I discuss in my writing, around the water cooler, during break, or even in the parking lot after you've punched out for the day.

I wonder how many of you would you feel comfortable talking about forming a union."

"I wonder how many of you are afraid to speak or make your voice heard, not only at work, but in other places, for fear of losing your job if your employer found out.

How absolutely fucked up is it that your so-called right to exercise your freedom of speech is hindered almost entirely by the fact that you might not only be fired, but ruin your entire career, just by speaking?"

"Do you know who doesn't have this issue? The owners. They can say whatever they want without fear of being fired. Sure, people can boycott. There are definitely consequences, but the consequences are not really the same for the people who have exploited, amassed, and hoarded large quantities of wealth, are they? Most people are in an existential crisis if they miss a paycheck or two. I'm not going to feel bad for Nazi billionaires when people torch their product line."