The work to be done


Sam Wallman

Sam Wallman is a unionist and cartoonist based on unceded Wurundjeri country. He is a member of the Workers Art Collective and the Maritime Union of Australia. His new book 12 Rules for Strife was produced in collaboration with Jeff Sparrow and will be published by Scribe Publications on May Day 2024. You can follow his work here.

More by Sam Wallman ›

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  1. Think I’ll holiday this year …

    In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
    There’s a land that’s fair and bright
    Where the hand outs grow on bushes
    And you sleep out every night

    Where they hung the jerk
    That invented work
    In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

  2. Here in the UK, I’m a 56yo person with plenty of skills, qualifications and work experience as a school teacher, business owner, musician, political activist and employee. Still, I’ve not worked since 2010 despite applying for thousands of jobs. Strange, you might think, until I mention my prison record. That’s it! All those hundreds of thousands of perfectly employable British people, all former prisoners, who are not wanted to do any of the worthwhile jobs that need doing.

  3. Strewth ! Who knew ?

    “ Ask chief executives where value comes from and they will credit their own smart decisions that inflate shareholder wealth. Ask logistics experts how supply chains work and they will wax eloquent about ports, terminals and trucks. Politicians, meanwhile, highlight nebulous intangibles like “investor confidence” – enhanced, presumably, by their own steady hands on the tiller.

    The reality of value-added production and supply is much more human than all of this. It is people who are the driving force behind production, distribution and supply.

    Labour – human beings getting out of bed and going to work, using their brains and brawn to produce actual goods and services – is the only thing that adds value to the “free gifts” we harvest from nature. It’s the only thing that puts food on supermarket shelves, cares for sick people and teaches our children.

    Even the technology used to enhance workers’ productivity – or sometimes even replace them – is ultimately the culmination of other human beings doing their jobs. The glorious complexity of the whole economy boils down to human beings, using raw materials extracted and tools built by other human beings, working to produce goods and services. “

    https://theconversation.com/healthy-humans-drive-the-economy-were-now-witnessing-one-of-the-worst-public-policy-failures-in-australias-history-174606

    (Labour produces all wealth, all wealth must go to labour.
    profits = #wagetheft )

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