Threefold Character of Labor: Civilization, Society, Culture

From Ordinary Labor

Let us meet labor from how it appears everyday. Everyday, we must head to the factory or other workplace. We meet our coworkers, managers, and bosses at the worksite on the days divided up that constitute the working days. These working days constitute the work week. The work week is established such that, for the majority of days, labor can produce the most for the most amount of time. For the most amount of time, labor is concerned with gathering, assorting, assembling, and managing: building—producing. Through the structure and components of building, labor is production. Production is generative, it creates. Production is creation.

The creative element of production through labor is poiesis: a crafting, generating, productive creation that brings forth into being, from out of nothing and possibility. Poiesis is a bringing-forth into being. It is a creative emergence which gives, grants, bestows existence.

In the factory and under capitalism, the means of production consist of the machines, tools, and technology which allow production to be done. Under capitalism, these things become assets of the owners of labor and production. Capital is the resources and wealth necessary to create these assets, and they then become further capital of the owners of the enterprise. The means of production are privately owned by the owners of the enterprise. Labor merely borrows the means and instruments of production for the work day. It is granted allowance for use in order to produce the goods and products of the enterprise for ultimately the profit of the business. Labor is, for its owners, something that is able to be exploited and extracted freely. The labor of workers is not their own, and neither are the means of production. The means of production are allowed to be borrowed in order for labor to be freely extracted.

We see an imbalance in the relations of labor: it is able to be freely extracted and exploited by the owners of capital for the sake of excess and profit while, for the laborer, they must give up the ownership of their labor for the price of a wage.

Now, why does a laborer enter a factory or other workplace? Because they have to, are already required to, because in order to live at all, people must aquire money in order to procure and secure basic necessities of life, such as shelter, food, and electricity. As soon as one is born into the world, they have already inherited and entered into a system of organization that requires them to enter the cycle of labor for securement of sustenance. Importantly, the organization of capitalism is thus: encroachment as enclosure of the earth.

The earth becomes enclosed under capitalism by capital. Enclosure happens by setting upon land and taking ownership of it in order for manufacture—transforming the raw materials and resources of earth into usable goods, most basically for food and shelter. Through taking private ownership of the land, capital is placed upon it and also privately owned. Means of production are established for the manufacture of goods and products necessary for human existence. Through capitalist expansion and excess, all sorts of industries and markets are created, including the products and commodities for leisure, play, and entertainment.

Something economic is given birth here as well as the political. The economy bursts alive and becomes the wealth of the nation. Policy concerning labor and the economy arises, political parties take shape, workers come together and unionize for the conditions of their labor.

Through enclosure, that which is enclosed becomes circular and cyclic: a great loop, circuit, ring of eternal recurrence. What recurs is the cycle of labor. The cycle of labor is the permanent recurrence of the chase and seeking of a wage.

Money is the basis for all existence and sustenance. It is the central core around which life itself is organized. We call this condition of central organization monetary centrism. Under capitalism, the meaning of human existence is money. It is the basis on which life is understood—the basis on which life is lived. It is also the basis of all power. This is the predominant way of organizing all civilization.

Civilization, Society, Culture

But monetary centrism is possible at all because of labor—in its creative element of poiesis. This means that civilization as a whole is possible only on the basis of labor. Labor is the creation of every human activity and way of being. From the creation of civilization, society becomes built and culture is produced. For its character of production, labor has also become enclosed for its power of production to transform and build, create and generate. Labor is seen as resource that is freely given to be exploited and extracted for the benefit of the owners of capital, the rich and wealthy, corporations, the ruling class, and the State. Throughout history, this has been justified as the divine and natural order bestowed upon kings, rulers, and the empire by god, and it has always been enforced through brutal violence and the spilling of blood. The poor of the lower and working class, the proletariat, has been justified as a resource of exploitation and extraction by invocations of the holy order of the cosmos by god. We are all unequal to god and so we must be unequal to kings, rulers, and States, who have been given, mysteriously, the divine right to rule and order and keep sacred the inequality and impoverishment of the proletariat. And this is the origin of civic religion, of the sacrality and holiness of the State.

But, of course, we know that this justification is an utter fabrication and blatant lie; so too is the social contract. A ruse, a scheme, to implement trickery about the necessity of a sovereign to keep peace and order. But what are we to do about it? It is enforced through blood and death. Perhaps it is blood and death which are necessary to overcome oppression. Blood and death, that is: decision and sacrifice. To decide on an epochal decision of historical peoples; to sacrifice as the completion of the decision. Tearful bringing-forth of history. But to say it in a way that is authentically mine.

The Essence of Labor

Is the creative element of poiesis. Human life is lived on the basis of labor but not only as production as productification. It is the laboring as the labor of producing and sustaining a world. For the production of sustenance and sustainability of all human life. To sustain and to protect, safeguarding, means to labor as endeavor. To endeavor and to endure—all harshness of the earth and nature: to secure a dwelling. And that means a dwelling for all peoples.

To labor a dwelling and to labor construction and sustenance of a world. All labor produces, constructs, a civilization, the basis for an authentic society and its creation of all culture. Labor is the labor of and for a world.