Thanks Dave Dorkin
--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> "The sea change in teh conflict over a shorter
> workweek is captured
> by the current union refrain that '[t]he question
> is...[s]hould
> workers be forced to work or should they be given
> the choice to spend
> time with their families?' This individualistic
> 'family values'
> public relations approach stands i nsharp contrast
> to the ninettenth-
> and early twentieth-century collectivist context,
> when labor
> 'predicated its demand for leisure as a means to the
> creation of a
> better social order. To produce intelligent
> citizens, essential to
> the existence of a democracy, everybody should have
> sufficient
> leisure to permit attendance at night schools, time
> for reading,
> discussion, and attendance at political meetings.'
> Around the time of
> the Civil War, the eight-hours movement was in part
> driven by the
> demand that a bright line be drawn between the time
> during which
> workers were wage-slaves to capital and the time
> during which they
> were free...."
> - Marc Linder, Moments are Elements of Profit
> (Iowa City, Fanpihua
> Press, 2000), pp. 6-7.
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/