On small-business fetishism

Le bourgeoisie- or actually, le petit-bourgeosie.

I happen to work for the petit-bourgeoisie- that is, a small business owner. The common myth amongst granola-eating liberals is that somehow small-businessmen are 'less exploitative' than big corporations and therefore we should all shop there to starve the big corporations to death, and then everyone will be happy.

This is just another illusion designed to deflect the rage of the oppressed- directing it against a 'few bad apples' instead of the entire rotten system.

I've worked for both small and big firms, and I've noticed several trends amongst them.

Among larger firms, the owner possesses many more machines, work seems to move at a slower pace, and I really didn't have to worry about my supervisors breathing down my neck thanks to the monolithic bureaucracy of uncaring individuals- We're churning out tons of product, usually for a low price, and typically the lower-level supervisors are as jaded and cynical as any of the other workers there.

Among smaller firms, the owner posesses fewer machines, and work is much more intense. I find that even if I am swamped with work, I will be berated for 'not being fast enough' or 'doing a good enough job'. Relations between employees and employers are much more personal.

This reminds me a lot of what I read in Marx' capital. I don't know the exact chapter, but he describes how a capitalist firm functions based upon a proportion between variable capital and fixed capital. Also, intensity of work can be altered by the owner of the firm. Based on my above observations, and those of Marx' I start to realize several things.

In the larger firms, we find that the proportion of fixed to variable capital swings much further towards fixed capital. Work is less intense, because since we have more machines and more people hired to work these machines, each individual's contribution seems to be lessened, while the overall amount of work done/commodities produced is increased.

In smaller firms, we find that the proportion swings in the direction of variable capital. The owner knows that he cannot afford to buy as many machines and hire as many workers as the owner of the large firm, so in order to keep up, he is required to increase the intensity of his work. The overall amound of work done/commodities produced increases, but at the expense of the workers.

So, I see it as a problem that people fetishize small business. Far from being benign, they are just as exploitative as the large corporations, and given the chance, they would gladly join the ranks of big business, as after all, no matter what their bollocks mission statements might say, at the heart of it all, it is in the nature of the beast that making a profit is their first, and most important goal.

That's not to say that business owners are all horrible, callous bastards- I happen to know some that are very nice people. However, when it comes down to it, it is the ruthless, those most willing to put aside their principles in order to reach their goal of making a profit, that succeed in this system.

What can we conclude from this? Marx and Lenin talked about the concentration of capital, and how capitalism, by centralizing the means of production in the hands of the few, creates the basis on which the working class will build a new system- Socialism.

Can you see where I'm going with this, now? As capital becomes more and more centralized, it will require less expenditure of labour to create the same amount of product, which 'eases the burden' upon the workers. Under the capitalist system, this means that more workers will lose their jobs, as capitalists produce to make a profit, not to meet humanity's needs, but under a socialist system, this means that the proportion of 'grunt work' to free time will gradually swing towards free time as technology continues to develop.

Some people, thoroughly imbued with the 'Protestant work ethic' may complain- What will happen to hard work, then? Hard work is what built this society!
Baloney- look at this from an evolutionary point of view. We are humans; tool making animals. We create tools to reduce the amount of work we have to do to meet our needs. If we have the ability to create the social conditions in which busywork occupies only a fraction of our free time, leaving the rest of the day open for us to spend time with family and friends, paint, take yoga classes, write novels, make music, and so on and so on, why shouldn't we?

Everyone's got to start somewhere...

Well, where to start?

The suburbs, of course. Slowly covering the earth, eating up everything that makes the world interesting and leaving nothing but banality in its place. They are symbolic of the labour aristocracy- the bourgeois bribing the first-world proletarians with the modern equivalent of 'bread and circus'- that is, 'welfare and football'.

Now, I want to qualify these statement before you interpret them. I'm no primitivist- I'm not suggesting that we go back to living in thatched-roof cottages, and abandon all of the technology we've developed. Neither am I a Maoist-Third-Worldist. I don't 'hate everyone in Amerika'- I realize that even despite these concessions, these material comforts, capitalism still takes it's toll on the first-world working class, one way or another.

Certainly the calorie-expenditure is nowhere that of the third world; we aren't working nonstop harvesting raw materials for peanuts.
However, look at all the people taking antidepressants, the high rates of suicide and obesity- instead of working us to death, they kill us by feeding us cheap but unhealthy slop and indoctrinating us with this individualist ideology that, while rewarding for the few that make it, leads to nothing but unreachable expectations and inevitably, disappointment and self-destruction for the many who crack under the pressure.

This illusion of middle-class prosperity needs to be torn down if progress is ever going to be made in the first world. Perhaps this economic crisis will do so, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Well, that's my two cents on that subject.

Aside from political ranting, I'm planning on covering several other subjects with this blog- my criticism and comments on various art and music, livejournal-esque whining about my alienation and social problems (sorry, I've got to let it out somewhere), and posting my own work, which I guarantee will be super kick-ass awesome.

However, I've got work in half an hour. These things will have to wait.