Yes, We’re Slaves

You’ve got three choices

It’s true. Your worst fear. The dark reality of a world where 98% of people are slaves to the other 2%.

Do you work in an office? In a factory? In a school? In a laboratory? or in a vehicle? In a mine? Slaves, all.

You must pour in your time and your labour, your physical and mental strength, work your ass off just to keep the job and pay the bills, and there are always people above you creaming off profit from the value you create and giving you just enough to keep you alive and inert.

So, what are you going to do about it?

You have 3 options:

Option #1 — Fight the Power

You join your local socialist party and campaign elections; you sit in your staff room educating people about the injustices they face in the workplace. You become the workplace Injustice Rep. You burn under the insult of it all — that these other rich people think they’re better than you and can control you and exploit you. You want to get free by breaking the system. You look for radical causes; anti-globalism, anti-capitalism, and climate change, and you form an identity as a person who is not a part of the exploitative ways of the world.

But meanwhile, you live in the world. Probably drawing attention to yourself as someone who should not be given any responsibility or helped in any way to amplify their voice. You have to do the same jobs everyone else does, but you do it with a cloud of rage, turning to despair, enshrouding you.

Bummer.

Option #2 — Enjoy the Perks of Slavery

It’s not so bad, really, modern slavery. The trick is to give as little as possible and to take as much as you can. You go to a hotel on company money and leave with a bag full of little shampoos and conditioners, biscuits, and teabags. Soak up the perks. Work yourself into a position where people are slightly afraid of you, and respect you a bit, and you know you’re not about to be replaced, and then do as little as possible, Make life comfortable for yourself, because a comfortable life for yourself means a better life for your kids and partner, means you can focus on your holidays and your hobbies.

But the perks to be found within slavery are limited, and you still need to pile in 70%+ of your working energy into serving your masters. Plus, your life is meaningless. Just a long attempt to blag and shirk work that you had to do anyway. As the years go by and your kids grow up, they see that void in meaning; you sidestepped the human challenge of trying to make things better.

Oops.

Option #3 — Partner Your Masters and Win Your Freedom

Don’t fight the work, or shirk the work. Embrace it. Work is life. Whether it’s writing emails, teaching kids, digging coal, or delivering shopping — get really good at it. Take pride in it. Become a little manager and then a bigger manager. Make yourself useful to the people above you, by coming up with new and better ways of doing things. Have them give you responsibility. Bear in the mind the ‘Fight the Power’ point of view and use your power to do what you can to make slavery better for everyone.

Then take your skills and set out on your own. Use the connections you made and the tools you have to win your freedom and set up your own thing — you might eventually need some slaves and that’s okay, encourage them to partner with you and win their freedom too.

It’s not ideal. It’s better than ideal, and it’s your only chance.