Jeff Rense & Jonathan Emord - America On The Ropes

America will not survive on sales clerks selling hamburgers & coffee for Corporations, who malign a man's labour as a liability or a "cost of doing business," rather than upholding labour as an asset of a production of wealth in & of its own right. The current model of economy is archaic & totally counter-intuitive to either human freedom or progress. That so many men & women are today on the dole, is indicative of their exclusion from the means of producing wealth as well as their disenfranchisement from a production of wealth. Simple consumption only produces wealth for Corporations. The practice of replacing human labour with the multiplier effect of technology & mechanization for the sake of profit to shareholders, in the absence of a concern for the dignity of labour & its value to itself in a production of wealth, is giving rise to a rapidly emergent & manifold poverty & servitude - both spiritual & physical.
"...It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favour of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labour in the structure of government. It is assumed that labour is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labours unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labour. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire labourers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all labourers are either hired labourers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired labourer is fixed in that condition for life." [Abraham Lincoln, State of The Union Address, December 3, 1861]
"...Now there is no such relation between capital and labour as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired
labourer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are
groundless."
"...Labour is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labour, and could never have existed if labour had not first existed. Labour is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights. Nor is it denied that there is, and probably always will be, a relation between labour and capital producing mutual benefits. The error is in assuming that the whole labour of community exists within that relation. A few men own capital, and that few avoid labour themselves, and with their capital hire or buy another few to labour for them. A large majority belong to neither class--neither work for others nor have others working for them."
"...Again, as has already been said, there is not of necessity any such thing as the free hired labourer being fixed to that condition for life. Many independent men everywhere in these States a few years back in their lives were hired labourers. The prudent, penniless beginner in the world labours for wages awhile, saves a surplus with which to buy tools or land for himself, then labours on his own account another while, and at length hires another new beginner to help him. This is the just and generous and prosperous system which opens the way to all, gives hope to all, and consequent energy and progress and improvement of condition to all. No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those who toil up from poverty; none less inclined to take or touch aught which they have not honestly earned. Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which if surrendered will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them till all of liberty shall be lost."