BartsBigBugBag

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1912_Lawrence_textile_strike

Goals: 54-hour week, 15% increase in wages, double pay for overtime work, and no bias towards striking workers

There is a tendency currently within corporate structures to focus on metaphysical conceptions, such as “energy” and “magic”.

It is my belief that this integration is a result of the cooption of the metaphysical by the corporations in light of the collapse of centrally organized religions.

With the loss/decline of community minded religion, a void was left within the wider population which reasserted its existence, further atomizing those already disaffected and alienated from themselves and their community by the perversity of the private property and capitalist models. Marx once said that religion is the opiate of the masses, this is often misunderstood as his stating that religion is an addictive drug, but in fact, opium at the time was a lifesaving medical wonder, and as such, religion is the opiate of the masses, to my reading, refers to the use of religion to stave off the pain caused by the alienation of the proletariat by the capitalist order.

Thus, it is my belief that the modern corporate structure with its focus on the metaphysical and attempt to integrate “community” into the inherently anti-communal structure that is the privately owned corporation, is a way of an attempt to repurposeing the necessity for an opiate in a way that enforces and entrenches the capitalist order. Through the creation and maintenance of hierarchically organized false community, they are able to shape the overall narrative surrounding themselves, and are able to drive the development and progression of community values society-wide in a way that furthers their interests and negates the best interests of the proletariat working class.

This development is a natural response for owners, executives, and investors as the proletariat reawakens to the inherently exploitative nature of private property relations and wage labor, and the long slumbering labor movement begins to reawaken. By enshrining the profit motive into the conception of community, and ensuring that workers are kept in a constant state of precarious balance(see: The Precariat), without time to personally develop an understanding of community as it exists naturally without corporate direction, the dominant narrative within a society can be driven to where even the remaining familial and communal bonds can become corrupted by capitalist rhetoric.

It is my belief that this instilling of self-exploitation into individuals has contributed to and allowed for the rise of inherently anti-communal concepts such as “hustle culture”, the monetization of hobbies, etc.

By tying impossible metaphysical conceptions such as “magic” and “energy” into corporate structures, corporations are able to essentially become proselytizing pastors preaching a fiery rhetoric of infinite growth in the face of hard environmental limits, while minimizing the inherent cognitive dissonance one feels in the knowledge that one’s own actions contribute directly to the compounding crises of the current era. when confronted with obvious logical fallacies by building “faith” within the working class.

This faith allows enough space for the corporate owners to push growth in ways that inherently damage the environment and working class, because when one relies upon faith, we are unable to logically examine things, and readily visible trends(such as that towards increasingly authoritarian hierarchies society-wide) become masked behind “the bigger picture”. It also serves to minimize dissent among the employees at a corporation, as those who come to believe in the faith-based ideology espoused by the corporation will react negatively to having their faith bubble popped, and can lash out in order to protect their identity, which, through ideological capture has become tied to their employer. Through time, this system will self-reinforce, as the corporation encourages blind faith, and punishes critical examination of the corporations claims, eventually, the corporation will be primarily those who have fully accepted the ideological basis which was forced upon them from above, and those individuals, having as said before, tied their identity to their corporation, will work in tandem with the corporation against their fellow workers in order to minimize cognitive dissonance and maintain their delusions of community.

One can hardly fault the individuals who fall for this rhetoric, as individuals themselves have limited resources and time to educate themselves on the underlying ideologies of the owner class within the society, while corporations and government, with their monopoly on the media, and levers of power, have nearly unlimited resources through which to push their ideology upon the people.

Through the position imposed upon the proletariat, termed by some the Precariat, in which one is precariously balanced above a pit of suffering, we are forced into a constant state of fight or flight, of survival. When one is in such a state, science has shown, pro-social behaviors such as empathy become more difficult to perform, as one is risking possible harm to themselves by going against the popular grain. By keeping people in this state of fear, they can spread their ideology nearly unchecked. The poor man looks down on the homeless man not because he hates him, but because he knows that he is only a run of bad luck away from becoming one himself, and the cognitive dissonance of being in such a position is so pernicious that people will reject the evidence of their eyes and ears in order to minimize their own suffering, even if that is directly at the expense of others.