Capitalism, Necessity, and Stigma

At birth, we are thrust into this dimension naked, wet, and confused. As we gain our bearing, we can change the naked and wet part, but we remain confused until we exit through the other side of existence. When we are old enough to walk and talk one of the prevailing myths given to us is, "You can be anything you want." This is in reference to occupation, or the role we will take in the capitalist market. So before we can comprehend the concept of money, bills, or taxes the seed is planted for us to pick from the plenitude of jobs. Soon after the myth is introduced, the question starts coming from all directions, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Some answers are tropes. My generation grew up with "doctor" or "lawyer" as the quintessential "good jobs". If a kid was particularly adventurous, he might say something like "firefighter" or, more unrealistically, "astronaut". Little were we prepared for the reality. We were inflating the population exponentially and those "good jobs" are of finite quantity. Not only that, but there are many more essential jobs that our parents would have steered us away from. When asked what they want to be, no kid ever says "janitor". And if they did, the follow-up would be a perplexed, "...but why?"

Those from a middle class background had education heavily pushed on them as a way to satisfying employment. The idea was that a college degree would confer upon us some quality of special-ness that would make us deserving of a "good job". This model broke down when it became clear that modern universities exist to extract money through federally subsidized loans, Pell grants, and unpaid sports entertainment while the students drink themselves into oblivion for four to six years. Unless you did some serious research into the labor market before starting college, you would have no idea what to pursue a degree in. Most of us fell into the trap of more bad advice, which was "follow your passion". "If you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life!" That saccharine sentiment is ironically true, because if you follow your passion to its academic conclusion, you will most likely find yourself unemployed and unemployable. The demand for humanities and arts majors isn't exactly brimming. If you end up with one of those degrees, you may find yourself toiling in retail or the service industry. Those are labor sectors the notoriously under-employed view as the undesirable result of their own failings. But is that attitude accurate? And why does it exist?

The economy has shown that there is simply not a job waiting for every college graduate in their field of study. There is, however, a glut of low-paying, low-skilled work for giant corporations in the service sector. There are also many jobs available in the public sector that don't necessarily require a college education. So if the economy's needs lie in  unskilled customer service work rather than nebulous office work, why is the latter valued over the former? Why do executives, bankers, and administrators command more respect in society than maids, servers, and cashiers? Please do not accuse me of setting up a false dichotomy. I understand that there are many trades and specialties in between. My point is that there is a certain segment of our population working at jobs that carry a stigma. Many people find themselves in jobs that they feel are beneath them. Part of this attitude is self-inflicted, and part comes from external sources. We didn't create this world, but we have to navigate it. We find ourselves in a situation where we all are forced to obtain money somehow. The way any one of us obtains our money should not be a source of shame. Collecting garbage is not anyone's life ambition, but it is a vital position in our community. I am advocating that someone's job is simply an economic function that should not define their identity.

No job is deserving of respect. No job is not deserving of respect. A job simply is. It is a neutral shuffling of matter. Every person is deserving of respect regardless of their title or job description. Capitalism is not collapsing rapidly, so each of us has to struggle through it the best we can. There are far more undesirable jobs available than so-called "good jobs". But that is only a subjective perception. The objective activity of modern labor is neutral and far easier than what prehistoric humans had to endure. The desirability or lack thereof attributed to any given position is bestowed by status. Since capitalism is a competition driven system, we are constantly encouraged to compare ourselves to others. One of the first things people ask upon meeting is, "What do you do?" On the surface, it is a question used to get to know someone, but its implication is a comparison of status. The question also encourages us to identify with our occupation more than we should. In Be Here Now, Ram Dass answers this question by saying, "I do Sadhana, work is a thing that happens." This answer illustrates that each individual is so much more than their economic activity, which is mostly forced upon them by circumstance. With constant shallow small talk, we actually never really get to know a person. We should be much more interested in what they think about than how they pay their bills.

By divorcing our identity from the activity we participate in to accumulate currency, we relieve ourselves of a certain alienation described by Marx. Work is a thing that happens and almost nobody is satisfied with it. When we stop seeking satisfaction from it, or learn to be satisfied in knowing we are contributing to the function of this ant hill we call society in our own way, we ease the burden of status seeking, which will always be a losing proposition. A lot of marketing dollars are spent to convince us that we are inadequate, that we are missing something. Refuse to play that game. Treat everyone around you in a way that allows them to do the same. Appreciate everything anyone does for you in the name of a paycheck. Don't give your fellow workers a hard time at their job. Don't look down on anyone because they do a thing that requires less education or is paid less than what you do. Start to view the world as a cooperative effort rather than a rat race. We are all in this together, my friends. And the only way we will defeat the tyranny of oligarchs is to realize that and act accordingly.