The arrangement

All of us who work live within an arrangement. It takes a multitude of distinct forms, but at the center of every one is the agreement to exchange work for money.

"If I give you work," you tell your employer, "you must give me money." The converse is stated by the employer - "I will give you money if you give me work." We may need to substitute some of our terms with others to make this picture more accurate for our actual situations, but the theme remains the same. Work is performed by a worker; money is given as compensation.

Outwardly, nothing is wrong with this. Cooperative arrangements of this nature make our society possible. As I said in a previous post, this is substantively how specialization is possible, and this, in turn, is what makes civilization as we know it possible.

Yet, most any working person can tell you that what comes with this arrangement is positively awful. The model here is one of subjugation, not cooperation. Because money commands work of any nature from any individual, the financial resources of the employer - the capital - places the employer at a complete advantage, and the worker with no option but to conform. "I pay you to work," is the unspoken demand of the employer. "Your time is therefore mine." It is in the rules of employment where mistrust of the worker and the interests of the employer are institutionalized. "You will do things my way," says the employer, "since that is the only way I can be sure you will do what we agreed." The worker can object, but the employer does not have to care. For every worker with "problems", there is another without who the employer will favor. In the name of employment - fair compensation for labor performed - subjugation, control, and dominance are the norm.

In previous generations, the capitalist system - a direct outgrowth of the feudal and imperial systems before it - was so brutal that the treatises of Marxism and socialism arose, and many found sympathy. "Give the workers control of the weath, and all will be better." It sounded good, but it was not to be: where a so-called "Marxist revolution" was tried, the situation actually grew far worse. In such societies, there was now a new ruling class - a "party" - in charge of the capital, and worse, their ideals denied the relevance of spirituality. Hence, the history of these Marxist regime had a brutality that actually turned the clock backward from capitalism. They were so certain of their correctness - and so arrogant in their doctrines - that their brutality took on a whole new meaning. Dissenters of any form were not simply dismissed from jobs or forsaken to poverty - they were systematically deported, imprisoned, and murdered. There was no humility anywhere in the regimes of Stalin or Mao, and their legacies are of only heartlessness and horror.

The painful lesssons of our employer-employee arrangements, and of the even worse examples that tried to defy them, is not that capitalism doesn't work. There will always be some who have more resources than others, and those who have will inevitably take advantage of those who have less. The only way it is stopped is through the basic humility that every person must maintain in order to achieve anything beyond mere material gain.

The major difference between an employer who says, "Do it my way, or else" versus one who says "I'd like you to do it my way.... but I am aware that my way may not be what is best for you" is exactly what distinguishes a good boss from a bad one. If employers could simply take on this attitude universally, that would be all the revolution we'd ever need.