Forum Post: Who Needs Who? - A Call For Labor Boycotts

We have been taught to think that money and capital are the engines of creation. Without them, we are told, there would be no jobs and hence, no wages. We should be thankful that private capital allows us to work and earn our pay. Without the benevolence of the capitalists, surely we would all starve… as they do in Africa.

It’s an interesting proposition, but is it true?

Who really needs who?

If you took all of the money and machinery in America and sealed it up inside a huge warehouse for a year, when you returned a year later there would be exactly what you had left there and nothing more. Not a penny’s worth of new wealth would have been created. So can it really be true that capital creates wealth? Without human and natural resources, capital can’t create a thing on its own.

Now the 1% will assure you that their money can purchase any resources that they need. There will always be lots of people who are “free and willing” to trade their labor and resources for money. But this does not alter the fact that, on its own, their money is incapable of producing any new wealth.

The 1% will also assure you that they are indispensable… that it is their knowledge and experience with managing others that makes an enterprise successful. But what productivity are they directly responsible for? Do they work in the factory or store along side their workers, or are they just a cabal of thieves who skim off the productivity of the workers for themselves?

Ask yourself this. If the 1% disappeared for a year, would the factories and stores all shut down? Could the workers not continue the operations without them? Of course they could. The workers would continue to do the jobs that they always did before and the production would continue on steadily. The workers may have to decide who is most qualified to take over the tasks of their former owners but they could surely work it out and adapt.

But what if the 99% disappeared for a year. Would the 1% be able to keep things running on their own? Not a chance… without their workers they wouldn’t have a clue about how their business really works.

So… who really needs who? The 99% already have all of the power on their side… they just don’t realize it. How long would any company be able to survive if a complete and total labor boycott of their operations was instigated. Within a week, their customers would be starting to look for other suppliers. Within a month, they would be in serious financial difficulty.

But what about the workers. How could they buy food and pay their own bills if they were no longer working? This is where we have to get creative.

If an alternative source can be found to pay workers for even a a day or two at time, a series of rotating labor boycotts could be launched against a few key companies, just long enough to convince them that the 99% have discovered their power and are prepared to use it to get some respect.

How much would it really cost to shut down a local Walmart or McDonald’s for a day or two? How big is their daily payroll? Who in the community might be prepared to contribute to a 1 or 2 day relief fund for the employees? If a series of these demonstrations started popping up all around the nation, against the worst of the worst employers, how seriously worried would the 1% start to get?

I don’t know… let’s think about it.