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Title: Essential Work?
Author: Prole Wave
Date: March 28, 2020
Language: en
Topics: COVID-19, logistics, communization, anarchy, communism, United States
Source: Retrieved on 2020-04-01 from https://prolewave.noblogs.org/post/2020/03/28/essential-work/

Prole Wave

Essential Work?

Splitting proles into the categories of ‘essential workers’ and

‘non-essential workers’ (if they’re employed at all!) is a reflection of

capitalist ideology. ALL wage labor is an imposition whether caring for

the infirm or filing papers in some business firm. What is today

highlighting the role of so-called ‘essential workers’ is the

overwhelming risk that they are compelled to enter, via the wage and/or

vocational notions, to keep the capitalist world humming along. But it

is this non-communal, piecemeal and capitalist approach to confronting

the pandemic which ends up over-burdening these ‘essential workers’ with

the responsibility for resolving or providing logistical support for a

crisis not of their making and of which they have very little say. As it

stands, a largely wildcat strike wave is upon us (e.g. Instacart,

Amazon, Whole Foods, sanitation workers, bus drivers, etc.). These

workers are striking in rejection of their being sacrificed during these

times of pandemic. They become another resource, another number deployed

by bosses and the State and not a part of a communal social fabric

combating something which can effect us all. Capitalist media abounds

with stories of the hero-making myth of many workers, but as we see more

and more even these workers know when they’re being swindled into

believing their occupation is a lofty vocation that somehow exists above

capitalist social relations.

Specifically waged labor now dubbed as essential is often deeply

racialized & gendered under capitalism; its perpetuation would only

further the naturalization of sexist & racist notions of who is

naturally pre-disposed for which kind of labor. Some may feel smugly

superior to their boss knowing that their labor is more ‘essential’ than

that of others, but the fact of the matter is that ALL wage labor

creates a social situation which only benefits those who profit. What

people are rightly noticing is that certain kinds of labor are indeed

superfluous to human existence, something which communists & anarchists

have never denied, but to simplistically champion the labor necessary

for human existence under capitalism would merely reinforce the

racialized & gendered division of labor, whether waged or unwaged.

Suffice to say it also naturalizes the capitalist category of labor

(where proles are reduced to their labor power). We are more than

workers.

To re-imagine how we can communally care for each other is something

that we must bear in mind and action, as communists & anarchists, if we

care about overcoming what a racist & sexist capitalist system offers

us. Those dubbed as ‘essential workers’ cannot pay rent with our

well-wishing, cannot be protected from infection with thank-yous or

attend to their families with while being forced to work interminable

hours. The beginning of truly communal care is beyond the realm of

capitalist work. Otherwise care and health work will be relegated to the

same over-burdened workers. It is essential that we support employed

proles on strike, as well as those those who may not have the capacity

to go on strike, by not crossing the picket-line and not by not buying

into capitalist ideology that says their labor must not stop. It is

clear the State and capitalists have no real plan to get out of this

manifold crisis that does not include primarily saving their capitalist

economy. The transformation of this social crisis into a crisis for the

capitalists, through communist measures, is what will help us truly care

for each other and abolish capitalist social relations once and for all.