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Diaries of exploitation n°2 : The underworld of work

Sunday 7 June 2015

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After a few weeks of "vacation", which were much less vacant that any hour spent at work, returning to the job this morning was harsh and rough. To go from moments of curiosity, cheerfulness, relaxation, contemplation, love, adventure and joy, alone or alongside loved ones, back into the pits of false pretences, grovelling, rivalry, taletelling and forced smiles, those accursed forced smiles… In other words, to go from intensity to vacuity, to go from a breaths of fresh air to being devoured by death itself: an unbearable contrast. So you turn rage into boredom, just to survive a little longer. You drill stoicism into your brain, you don the apron, you hit the off button, you play the part, you get fucked over and you return to your cage, exhausted. Then you try to forget, you try not to think about it all, because all this emptiness is frightening, and because it’s mortifying to waste one’s life away in such a manner.

One often talks of prison as if of mentioning a separate universe, where everything is a reminder of the world outside but where the codes and ways of relating to each other are different, worse. Xosé Tarrío, assassinated by the prison system in 2005, spoke (rightly so) of a penitentiary "underworld". One might say much the same of workplace. At work, people that we might have held in esteem elsewhere can become monstrously spineless and niggardly, and men and women we might have considered cowards can turn out to be full of courage, and vice versa… Just as is the world of imprisonment, the world of work is a world of its own, without which this world wouldn’t exist. The relationship between the workplace and this society based upon domination is such that they perpetuate each other. Because, just as the activity of the slave perpetuates slavery, the activity of the worker produces and reproduces exploitation, which itself produces a climate of competition between individuals and of permanent precariousness.

They call it "the world of work", as if it were separated from the rest of life. But it isn’t. We do all live in a world of work, be we workers or not. And work, that diabolical leech, will never stop robbing us of our sweat, so long as we remain fettered by the shackles of money. And what’s the point in self-managing this intense suffering, this infinite sadness, as anarcho-syndicalists sometimes aspire to? What’s the point in trying to distinguish, at all costs, wage labour from other forms of labour?

Be it in legal or illegal work, under permanent or temporary contract, on the dole or on welfare: the taste of our own blood remains the same.

This "world of work" is a world in which the shitty social interactions that most of us painstakingly try to avoid in the streets become unavoidable. And when social relations are forced, there is war, and indeed what a war there is, split between revolt and the predation of all on all. Ultimately, there aren’t so many differences between the relation of a waitress, a cashier, a salesperson or a prostitute to the customer, and that of an inmate to a jailer. Without the one, the other wouldn’t exist, but in each case, the dependance doesn’t work both ways (nor —let alone!— does the interaction take place on equal footing). And that, well, that’s permanent war. A war waged over a few stale breadcrumbs. Forgo your life to stay alive.

The world is made in such a way that each and every one of us, whether we like it or not, is a customer at some point in their life, a "beneficiary" as they say in the benefits office; in turn jailer and jailed, exploiter and exploited, sometimes both at once. That truly is the victory of this freewheeling system, whose parts work to reproduce it unawares, like easily replaceable nuts and bolts. If this war for survival is to become a war for freedom, we must therefore break the machinery to pieces, before smashing each piece and trampling the wreckage with orgiastic disdain.

How many hours, days, years, and entire lives have been sacrificed, how many deaths for the sake of work, of the economy, of their peace? What is this life, which requires us to sacrifice it in the interests of others? For food, for a roof over our heads, for comfort? But what is the point in being able to feed and lodge ourselves if we’re to lead a shit life? As once said Jünger, comfort comes at a price, and the domesticated animal livestock is raised for slaughter..

We cannot even see the stars at night anymore, but we don’t need the stars in order to dream. It’s enough to see a tree grow. One may well dump a car park on it, its branches will always climb, even if it takes them hundreds of years, and they’ll find a way to reach up at the sky.

So this evening I dream, I dream that we smash it all, that our branches wrap around this world and crush it, drowning in sap those pigs that gnaw at our joints inch by inch. Because the seeds of freedom that we want to sow in the earth will never be able to sprout, except for in the ruins of this rotten world that has sullied us from root to leaf.

But a wall’s thickness counts less than one’s will to overcome it. So I hope that one day humanity will lift its head and rise, in the manner of a creeping vine —otherwise it is worthless.

Non serviam.