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Are All Unemployed Persons Idlers?

Attac Germany | 30.01.2006 21:16 | Social Struggles | World

According to the neoliberal myth, higher profits lead to increased investments and more jobs. In reality, corpora-tions repress the worsening domestic economy through foreign takeovers. Is making the unemployed, seniors, students and the disabled invisible a form of violence?

ARE ALL UNEMPLOYED PERSONS IDLERS?

By Attac Germany

[This tract from December 2003 is translated from the German on the World Wide Web  http://www.attac.de/aktuell/rundbriefe/sig/SiG34.pdf,]


In 1973 there were 273,000 unemployed.

In 2004 there were 4,400,000.

Are we becoming increasingly lazy?

0.4 million open jobs are available for 4.4 million unemployed.

Are the 4 million unemployed idlers?

In 2000 there were 1.3 million more unemployed than 1991.

Did laziness increase by leaps and bounds in the 1990s?

50-year olds are more than twice as often jobless than 25-year olds.

Does laziness increase with growing age?

Construction workers are frequently jobless in the winter.

Does laziness skyrocket in the winter?

Unemployment is nearly twice as high in East Germany than in the West.

Are East Germans more than twice as lazy than West Germans?

Receivers of unemployment assistance receive on average 522 Euro.

Do you really think “laziness” is rewarding?

Two-thirds of the unemployed have vocational training.

Is someone lazy who will not accept any job?

Employed workers who do not want to work longer and more are also stylized as idlers. Whoever has capital is allegedly always diligent!



PROFIT IS THE PROBLEM, NOT LAZINESS!

· More and more workers become superfluous with constantly improved machines and plants. Whether they were diligent or not does not matter.
· Workers are ultimately only employed when they bring a profit. The benefits of work for the society do not count much.
· Whoever brings too little because he or she is too old, for example, hardly finds work.
· Capital is too lazy to work – when the profit isn’t right.
· Modern machines reduce the working hours for products. Still the working hours are lengthened and costly investments are worthwhile. Crises arise because too much is produced, not because too little is produced out of laziness, too many goods, too much capital. This makes profit fall. The overproduction must be destroyed. Even better machines are bought to come out of the crisis. Everything only goes back to the beginning.

The more diligent the employees and the more capital they produce, the more they will be unemployed and the longer they will remain jobless.

We work too much! We have a right to laziness!

We have no interest in working longer for less pay only to avoid being stigmatized as idlers by millionaires.

Millionaires only live in luxury because they have others working for them.

Working less =
Less unemployed!

30 hours a week is enough!

The lines run between top and bottom,
not between the nations.




Attac Germany
- e-mail: mbatko@lycos.com
- Homepage: http://www.mbtranslations.com

Comments

Hide the following 7 comments

Excellent post, comrade!

31.01.2006 01:03

Yes, we need more of this Marxist analysis on Indymedia.

All power to the people!

Uncle Joe


Unco Joe

31.01.2006 02:34

Don't call other posters nasty names without stronger justification.

To the original poster, yes, laziness is it's own reward. It is the victory of self-sacrifice over greed. It starves our murderous state of bombs and technicians. Viva la doley !

Danny


PS - Sick day guilt

31.01.2006 02:58

I was cursed with a psychotic work ethic. If I falsely took a sick day I got so guilty I started to feel the symptoms of whatever disease I'd claimed to have.

I would like to encourage current wage-slaves of the ethics of laziness. Feel proud and defiant whenever you pull a 'sickie'. You are starving the beast of its fodder. You are impovershing a rich psychopath. I want to see statues raised depicting the brave worker lying on a couch watching crap TV. Even indirectly, your labour kills innocents for the profit of tyrants, the way your taxes kill directly. You know you could be doing something positive instead, but if you aren't then the best thing you can do is suck money out the system, so replace your guilt with pride. Taking a sickie from a sick society makes you an international hero of the people. Well, I admire you at least, but try and progress to sabotage.

Danny


Idler

31.01.2006 08:15

Be Idle without guilt! See  http://www.idler.co.uk/

Idler


famous for being famous

31.01.2006 09:01

Is it right to take a cleaning job in the City? i.e for the bastards at the heart of pushing,war/environmental destruction

Is it right to take a low paid job bringing down our wages?

Have we got a choice with the above? *( Free will vs economic free will )

--------------------------

Job choices and HR whtitle down applicants based on ability to OBEY and to be connected - hence overpaid vacancies for office workers and those in the media and pedagogic centres e.g job vacancies for incompetent management, talentless media workers, administators, consultants, teachers, surestarters, human rersources staff, community coppers, professional pundits e.g Anthony O ' Hear ( fuckwit ) , middle england social workers , demented lawyers, estate agents, systems analysts etc etc.

I'm surte that there are some of you who are quite good in these areas - most of you though have taken the bribe.....

But I need a job. A bet there's more than one 'anarchist' and 'marxist' working for the enemy that can justify their existence with all kinds of excuses.

Off with your heads. Hippycrites.

wicker men for the bosses


thank you

31.01.2006 13:05

Its great to see some refreshing air in Indymedia that has nothing to do with islam.

Thank you

unai


Learning to be lazy

31.01.2006 13:14

I gave up paid employment almost ten years ago. Since then I have found I don't get a break at the weekend, my work doesn't end at 5pm and most of my vacations are busmans holidays. I am on 24 hour call-out and I don't get sick pay. Sometime I miss the easy life I had when I worked for a living.

On the other hand, I get out of bed when I like (most days) and while I don't get a lunch break I can eat whenever I choose.

Not working for a living is hard work. I have been trying to learn to be more lazy, say no more often and leave slack even if it means something won't happen.

When I see the city workers at lunch break smoking in alleyways or in the evening at the pub, what I see a bunch of kids in school uniform hanging out by the sweet shop.

is hard work


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