Ray Evans Harrell:
>It is inconceivable to one who has ridden the "can" down 800
>feet into the cold earth never knowing when a stone would come
>loose from the cribbing and meet your head leaving you dead
>before work even began, that this work would be glorified.
>It is inconceivable that there is the glory in the hard monotony
>and danger of the factory
Hi Ray,
I won't comment on Marx or Keynes except to say that your library book has
wronged them both. However, I can't seem to above two sentences out of my
mind. They capture or suggest something essential, but I'm not sure of what
it is. I keep thinking of Stalin's Stakanovites (sp?), workers who were
totally
committed to production, risking everything so that they could exceed quotas
which the state had set for them. They were glorified, made the subjects of
speeches and songs and given medals. In retrospect, we see this as a
cynical and false glory, but at the time and place, ever so many miners and
factory workers believed that building socialism was the right thing to do,
so glorifying the pace-setters does not seem so strange.
I think too of the generations of people who did work long hours, indeed
lifetimes, in mines and factories simply because they had to. There was no
other way of making a living. Many of these people died accidentally or of
occupational diseases, leaving wives and children to fend as best they could
in a system without much social support. I agree that there was no glory in
it, but there was something very much tougher -- an acceptance and gritty
perseverance, and a recognition that there was no other way. Eventually,
this grittiness and toughness led to the formation of powerful unions, an
improvement in working conditions, and the passage of widely beneficial
social legislation. As well, with the passage of time, older technologies
were replaced by newer and more efficient ones. Both because of unions and
the achievement of higher levels of productivity, incomes rose and ordinary
people could afford to go see movies and plays. Entertainment became
popularized. It was no longer the preserve of the rich.
Perhaps, if one views it this way, there was some glory in it. We are the
descendants and beneficiaries of the people who spent their lives sweating
in the mines and factories. Yet not many of us would even give this a
passing thought. We are much too busy zipping around in our minivans,
chattering on our cell phones or playing with whatever other gadget fate
seems to have thrust into our hands. Where all of this came from is not
something we are very much bothered about.
Ed Weick
