You’ve probably heard some version of the saying “money keeps the world spinning.”
Though this is just a saying, it reflects a much deeper idea that is taken to be a law of civilized society. Almost everyone nowadays is highly skeptical of absolute and unchanging principles, but an almost universal exception is made for this idea; that money is what binds our society, and every other society since the beginning of time, together.
Money is taken to be the ultimate power, the giver of life and the soul of organized society. This idea only seems true if the premises of our society remain unexamined. In reality, the sole purpose of this idea is to justify the political rule of the rich, the rule of wealth. However, there is a much more powerful, important and ever-present force which governs our society and every other society. That force is labor.
Without labor, there could be no society whatsoever. If a large majority of workers woke up and decided to not go to work today, the world would stop in its tracks. It would not even take a majority. If a significant minority of workers in a vital industry decided to not work, there would be chaos. If, on the other hand, the majority of Wall Street investors and stock brokers decided to not work, society would be able to get on just fine.
Do not take labor to mean only physical work. Labor is physical and intellectual. There are those who work with their hands and there are those who work with their brains, and both types of labor are equally important. Without the masses of people who perform physical and mental labor on a daily basis, we could not have any of the things that we do. Construction workers, sanitation workers, bus drivers and truckers, writers, teachers and artists and many more jobs, are all necessary for the maintenance and reproduction of society.
It is by labor that the raw materials of the earth are transformed into the things which we need to survive and to make other things. It is labor carried out by human beings which acts upon the world of nature and turns it into something with purpose and utility, something with value. Money is merely a representation of this value; it does not determine it. If proof of this is needed, try going outside and throwing $100 bills at a tree and see if it turns into a table. You will soon find that doing this has the same effect on the tree as wishing really hard that it was a table.
If you want the tree to turn into a table, or chair or anything else, you will have to apply yourself to it physically with a variety of tools and implements, with saws, axes and perhaps even a lumber facility. And if after you had completed building your table, you were to take it to a market and sell it, you would no doubt demand that any potential buyer give you a certain amount for it, to make up for the blood, sweat and time which you have expended in building it.
You worked on the table for so many hours, used such and such materials and tools, and by this measure you demand a certain price from anyone who wishes to purchase what you have made. If someone were to offer you only $10 for your table, and justify it by saying that money is the measure of all value, you would probably laugh in their face.
You would not let yourself be ripped off in such a blatant manner, but everyday, working people all across the world are forced to sell their labor-power to employers at whatever rate the employer asks, under threat of starvation and exposure to the elements. As individuals, workers are almost powerless; our power is in numbers. Organizing into unions and parties allows them to effectively stand up for their interests and fight the tyranny of the wealthy.
We live in a time when a very small minority of people own vast amounts of wealth, wealth that they themselves do not produce. The masses of working people in this country and the world at large have been deprived of the fruits of their labor by those whose sole function in society is the manipulation of money. The rich have laid waste to labor unions and workers organizations in this country, and have done their utmost to ensure that the working class does not unite against them.
The greatest weapon in the struggle against the rich is the collective power held by the working class, and its ability to come together and withhold its labor. In doing so, it is able to deprive the rich of the one thing that they do not have, which is the labor that is required to keep the gears of society turning. The working class must not settle for scraps from the tables of the rich; we must fully realize our power, and come together to fight for the inauguration of a new society, in which the power and will of the working class and its most advanced members reigns supreme.
