Recommended Reading: The Good Old Days

NinaIllingworth November 14, 2022November 17, 2022 anticapitalism, blog, CA4, capitalism, capitalism will kill us all, capitalist realism, child labor, class war, defensive democracy, defensive voting, Deregulation, exploitation, free market fundamentalism, Great Depression, Josh Fiallo, labor, labor rights, labor theory, late capitalism, neofeudalism, neoliberalism, new Gilded Age, Nina Illingworth, organized labor, Packers Sanitation Services, pig empire, PSSI, Rec Reads, Recommended Reading, revolutionary theory, Robber Barons, Second Gilded Age, Socialism, ST2, sweatshops, The Daily Beast, Theory

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Today’s edition of Recommended Reading is going to be a sort of “anticapitalist two-for-one” discussion about labor rights and defensive democracy. While anyone who has studied a little Marx can tell you that there’s no such thing as compassionate capitalism, it also doesn’t take a whole lot of insight to realize that modern capitalism is increasingly dehumanizing, cruel, and brutally exploitative. Characterized by the near-absolute rule of capital, our society still venerates billionaire “disruptors” who mostly invent new ways to violate labor laws and regulations. Whether you want to (rather optimistically in my opinion) call this state of affairs “late stage capitalism,” a “Second Gilded Age,” or “neofeudalism” like I do, is largely irrelevant.

What all of these terms have in common is the inherent understanding that modern capitalism is dependent on degrees of labor deregulation and exploitation that would be totally alien to our parents; but not necessarily our grandparents, and certainly not your great-grandparents. Furthermore, nothing quite illustrates the idea that contemporary capitalism is actually a reactionary regression, not a series of innovations, than the surge of real as penitentiary steel child labor in America. Lest you think I’m talking about a theoretical libertarian fever dream, let’s take a look at this November 10th, 2022 report by Josh Fiallo over at The Daily Beast:

Feds: 31 Kids Found Working Graveyard Shifts on Meat Plant ‘Kill Floors’

The story is more or less exactly what it says on the tin. The U.S. Department of Labor is seeking an injunction against a gigantic sanitation company called Packers Sanitation Services, or PSSI for employing dozens of kids, as young as 13 years old, in dangerous overnight shifts cleaning industrial equipment at food processing plants. At least two children have suffered chemical burn injuries doing this work, and the company has a documented history of tossing safety regulations out the window for profit. Finally, although this is an investigation in progress, it sounds like the Feds have reams of evidence that PSSI is consciously running modern American sweatshops; and they don’t want you to know it:

“Many of the children detailed in the Department of Labor’s complaint were tasked with cleaning machines used to cut meat, which included “electric knives” and “Grasselli skinners”—a tool used to skin fat from an animal’s carcass.

Investigators from the department’s Wage and Hour Division interviewed “several minors” during tours of each plant. They observed that “nearly all areas” of the plant contained “meat and bone cutting saws” or other dangerous power-driven machines not meant to be cleaned by children, the complaint said.

The feds alleged they found abhorrent conditions during the tour, with the Grand Island kill floor appearing to have cow fat covering the entire ground.

They also accused PSSI of trying to obstruct the investigation by retaliating against workers who spoke with investigators, and tossing out or manipulating employee files to cover its improper hiring record.

When investigators interviewed workers in person, the complaint said PSSI supervisors tried to stay close and listen in on the conversations, not moving until they were ordered to.”

Look folks, it really doesn’t get more dystopian than paying thirteen year old children to stay up all night and clean the electric knives on a cattle kill floor; you don’t need a Great Depression metaphor here, this is exactly what the darkest chapters of American labor history actually looked like. While the article casually goes out of its way to note that the children were all Spanish-speakers, the plain truth is that this happened in Minnesota, and most of these kids appear to be attending local schools. Although it shouldn’t matter either way, this is not a migrant story, or a deep south exploitation story; this is how American business operates everywhere in a neofeudalist hellhole.

It is not at all an understatement to say that this is the future capitalists want in America; and indeed, this is what their in-pocket reactionary politicians really mean when they talk about returning to the good old days. When either the so-called “populist” right, or neoliberals tell you about the wonders of deregulation; this is what they mean. Left to their own devices, free market fundamentalists will seek lower labor costs no matter how many lives it destroys; and that’s true whether we’re talking about school children, or the broader swathe of poor people facing down climate crisis globally. The bottom line doesn’t have room for compassion; the company takes, what the company wants – unless we stop them.

And that I think is the handle that’s missing in the broader discussion about American politics in the era of capitalist realism. I have no faith in elections, or liberalism to deliver us from either fascism, or climate catastrophe; capitalism isn’t going to end itself for us, unless it wipes out all life on Earth first. But as a member of the labor class, I can promise you that I will fight tooth and nail against folks who want to make all of this legal, regardless of which party they belong to, every time. We’re not going to win labor rights and a future for our species at the ballot box; but we can sure as f*ck lose them there.

Never forget; time is also a resource for a revolutionary.