Folks in one chapter did an on-the-street survey picking about six of our planks (universal healthcare, right to a job, etc.) and asking whether people supported them--the only one that DIDN'T get positive response (under 50% positive) was the shorter workweek.
I attribute this to: (a) people who work hourly think, shit, without overtime how the hell am I going to pay my bills, never mind less time.... Jenny Brown
``...But workers increasingly felt their free time had less value, over the years more--and more men than women--felt that they might as well work 8 hours...'' Michael Perelman
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Yup. They are completely over-extended on credit cards, car payments, medical and dental shit for their kids, maybe spousal and child support for another family, etc, etc.
Plus, and this is the deeper threat implied in Michael's note, they don't want to face: they have nothing but their job. That's it. They have no other life. The void.
I walked out of a terrible job in the early nineties. Decided one day, you know, I don't give a shit anymore what happens this job is over. Went upstairs and told the owner I was leaving in two weeks, after working there for five years and many other places for thirty straight fucking years.
When I went home early the last day, I got back to my apartment and took a nap. Fuck it. It took me about three months of doing nothing to get over work. Slowly I figured out other things to do like cycling, climbing, reading, writing and painting. After six months I had lost something like thirty pounds and was happier than I had ever been in my entire life. No future, that's the key concept. Abolish the future.
Now, my kid had moved out to go to college (his grandfather paid the expenses), I was divorced, I owned nothing but my personal stuff and a car, period. So there were no strings. No future, no strings. No nagging shit from dur fuehrer ex-wife about what I was going to do (it was always orders, orders, nothing but orders!). I was going to do nothing. But there's an art to doing nothing, which is doing all the things you always wanted to do and never had time to do.
Since I had very little money and I decided I wanted to go back to painting, I did a temporary job to clean out a house and prepare it for a house painting contractor. Among the junk I threw in the dempster was a cheap (Taiwan) oak children's sized bunk bed set. I took the oak frame pieces home and made a nice easel out of them. It took me about a week with hand tools. Art materials are relatively cheap so I could afford them. The one luxury item I allowed myself was hard cover books, so I re-habilitated my old paper backs with used hard covers and re-read a lot of books I had and got lots of new ones.
Cycling and climbing are beautifully exhausting and very heathy, plus they leave you so tired at the end of the day, you sleep like a baby and don't need drugs or alcohol. I already had the equipment so these cost basically nothing.
I was just looking at my social security statement that came yesterday. It was interesting reading. Nostalgia. I lasted about three and half years living by the week and occasional day labor of various sorts. Income Reported SS:
1992 14,866 (I quit in June) 1993 3,428 1994 2,318 1995 0 (waay cool year) 1996 27,554 (bummer, back to work)
Now according to the SS statement, I'll qualify for about 1,200 a month in five years. I can live on 1,200 a month but I would need a few days work in odd jobs if I wanted to buy something like a very used truck or car and fix it.
In fact my model retirement plan comes from the guy who picks up cardboard at work: Solomon, who is 85+, lives in a senior living center downtown and spends his days in a beat-up twenty year old pick-up going around to old neighborhoods and chatting with old friends, and getting cardboard from a few very select places where the people know him and like him. So he's figured it out.
Ironically, the problem most people face is that they don't have enough education not to work. You need to know all sorts of things in order to live without work and no ties at all to mass production life or domesticity. You need literature, art, some science, sports, and a host of labor skills that many people just don't have. So I wouldn't suggest quitting work, unless you put in twenty years of mixed low pay manual and skill labor jobs and have at least an MFA, and preferably a PhD!
As for health benefits, I think I would be tempted to get some fake ID for that and use the ER in a pinch. Fake ID might not work on the cops, but it would probably work on the assholes in the medical billing department--or at least long enough to get out of there and never go back. (I am white and look middle class, so they might beiieve me.)
If it was something big, they would put me on Medi-Cal and retro bill the state, anyway.
I mean its a criminal offense to be poor and its practically a felony not to work, so there are a few bourgeoise hurdles to get over before you ready for a life with no future.
Chuck Grimes