In any particular B-phase regardless of era, there are several indicative characteristics: 1) decline in profitability and a shift to more speculation; 2) capital flight from core to semi-periphery and periphery; 3) rise in world unemployment (nations begin exporting unemployment to one another).
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> From an F.N. Brill column in the "Industrial Worker":
With the official unemployment rate rising world wide, it would appear that this would be a good time to remind all wage-slaves to practice some on the job solidarity and call in sick. Taking sick days makes us feel healthier. We get direct health improvements, tops among them, lowering our stress. Stress is connected to all kinds of disorders, most dangerously, heart disease. So, taking time off work is a form health insurance as it leads to a more relaxed lifestyle. The direct action of calling in sick does indeed get satisfaction. And believe you me, these personal health improvements have class-wide benefits as well. Just think of the dent such a practice places on to the supposed oversupply of our fellow workers' skills, especially as it might grow to a classwide action. Proles don't have to be subscribers to the "Wall Street Journal" or the "Financial Times" to understand how the law of supply and demand operates when there are fewer of us at work each day. To increase the demand for and price of our various and sundry know-hows, it is incumbent on already employed workers to show solidarity and call in sick more often. After all, gaps have to be filled to keep the wheels of whatever industry you are in turning, don't they?
And nobody is going to turn those wheels, if we don't, are they?
Come to think of it, May Day occurs on Thursday this year. Now speaking of turning, I'll bet it turns your stomach to think of going to work on May Day! And if, you're off on May Day then why not make a weekend of it and really relax. Yes, take Friday off too!
"Jobs, jobs, jobs", you say. Just another typical leftist, you say. No, it's not exactly that. I'm as aware as you are that most jobs are useless. Recent surveys have shown that as many as 60% of workers feel their work is of no use to society. And, it's true. Bucky Fuller once said that useful work was that which "nurtures and accommodates human life." Most of the jobs which capitalists and State bureaucrats hire us for these days are useless and pointless.
So, why feel guilty, call in sick on May Day.
But that brings up the question. Why do we bother going to work at all?
Well, that's simple enough. We're doing it for the money. It's because we're wage-slaves and we haven't got anything other than our skills to sell on a daily basis, in that grand "free" marketplace of commodities. We can starve or we can eat. As some wag once said, "...a poor person forced to work a job they despise because of economic necessity is a slave." It's that simple. So, we choose to work for the money and eat and enjoy at least a few of the good things in life. Ah wage-slavery, love it, leave it or, if you care to, organize and abolish it.
===== "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
Benjamin Franklin
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