The logic of capitalism; the unemployed and the superfluous

Posted by DanielS on Saturday, 25 July 2015 10:58.

Alain de Benoist
pelizza
Translated from the French by Tom Sunic

Below is the interview A. de Benoist gave recently to Boulevard Voltaire.

Q: Despite repeated promises of politicians, both from the right and the left, nothing seems to be stopping the rise in unemployment. Is it something inevitable?

A: Officially, there are 3.5 million unemployed in France, which means that the unemployment rate stands today at 10.3%. This figure, however, varies depending on how it is being computed. The official statistics take into account only the category “A”, i.e.  those who are unemployed and who are actively looking for a job, while leaving out the categories “B”, “C”, “D” and “E”, i.e. those looking for a job although having had some reduced work activity as of lately; those who have stopped looking for a job but are still unemployed; those receiving training; those in traineeship; those working under “subsidized contracts”, etc. When adding together all these categories, one reaches the real unemployment rate of 21.1% (more than double the official figure). If we refer to the overall rate of the inactive population of working age, then we arrive at 35.8%. Moreover, if we were to take into account insecure, part-time, or short-term jobs, as well as the number of the “working poor”, etc., then this figure keeps getting higher.

Undoubtedly, changes in unemployment depend on the official policies—but only to some extent. Today’s unemployment is no longer of a cyclical nature, but primarily structural, something many have not fully understood yet. This means that work is becoming a scarce commodity. The jobs that have been lost are less and less being replaced by other job openings. Of course, the expansion of the service sector is real; yet the service sector does not generate capital. Moreover, twenty years down the road almost half of those service sector jobs will be replaced by networked machines. To imagine, therefore, that someday we shall return to full employment is an illusion.


Q: There are people who live in order to work and others who work in order to live. Aren’t those who refuse to lose their lives in order to earn it part and parcel of some ancestral wisdom? Is work really a value in itself?

A: What needs to be pointed out is that what we call “work” today has no relationship whatsoever with what used to be productive activity of the past centuries, namely a simple “metabolization” of the nature. Neither is work a synonym of activity, nor of employment. The near universal spreading of wage labor was already a revolution of sorts to which the masses remained hostile for a very long period of time. The reason for that is that they had been accustomed to the consumption of the assets of their own labor only and never viewed labor as means of acquiring the assets of others, or in other words, to work in order to purchase the results of the labor of others.

Labor has a dual dimension; it represents both concrete labor (its metabolizing purpose) and abstract labor (energy and time spent). In the capitalist system what counts is abstract labor only, because this kind of labor, being indifferent to its own content, being also equal for all goods for which it provides a basis of comparison, is the sole factor that transforms itself into money, thus acquiring a mediating role in a new form of social interdependence. This means that in a society where commodity is the basic structural category, labor ceases to be socially distributed by traditional power structures. Rather, it performs itself the function of those ancient relationships. In capitalism, labor constitutes itself the dominant form of social relationships. Its by-products (commodity, capital) represent simultaneously concrete labor products and the objectified forms of social mediation. Hence, labor ceases to be a means; it becomes an end in itself.

In capitalism value is made up of the time spent working and represents therefore the dominant form of wealth. Capital accumulation means accumulating the product of the time spent in human labor. This is why the enormous productivity gains generated by the capitalist system have not resulted in any significant decrease in working hours, as one might have expected. On the contrary, based on the trends of unlimited expansion, the system keeps imposing always more work. And it is right there that we can observe its fundamental contradictions. On the one hand capitalism seeks to extend working hours, since it is only by having people work more and more that it can achieve capital accumulation. On the other, productivity gains allow from now on the production of more and more goods with less and less men. This makes the production of material wealth more and more independent from the time spent on working. In this respect the unemployed have already become the superfluous people.

Q: You are known to be a workaholic. Do you ever miss watching the grass grow and fondle some of the cats in your household?

A: I work 80-90 hours a week simply because I like doing what I do. This does not make me an adept of the ideology of work. Quite the contrary. In theGenesis (3: 17-19) work is depicted as a consequence of the original sin. Saint Paul says: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat” (II Thessalonians3:10).This moralistic and punitive view of the work is just as alien to me as the Protestant redemptive work ethic, or for that matter the exaltation of the value of work by totalitarian regimes. Yes, I am aware of the fact that the word “travail” (work) comes from the Latin tripalium, a word which originally used to designate an instrument of torture. Therefore, I try to sacrifice to the requirements of “free time,” which is “free” insofar as it is freed from work.

Alain de Benoist is a journalist and writer who, in 1968 founded the Groupement de recherche et d’études pour la civilisation européenne, an ethnonationalist think-tank.


Comments:


1

Posted by Kumiko Oumae on Sun, 26 Jul 2015 05:16 | #

Absolutely great article in every way.

Alain de Benoist is one of the greatest thinkers in Europe right now.


2

Posted by Ellen Brown on Greek debt on Mon, 27 Jul 2015 15:29 | #

Ellen Brown on the Greek debt

http://www.starktruthradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Ellen-Brown-on-Greece.mp3


3

Posted by Golden Dawn from the horse's mouth on Wed, 29 Jul 2015 18:07 | #

Giorgos (George), editor for the website of the New York division of Golden Dawn:

http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2015/07/RIR-150727.php


4

Posted by US Gov. rewards hiring non-US grads on Mon, 05 Mar 2018 04:03 | #

New Observer, 1 March 2018:

“US Govt. Rewards Capitalists with $2bn Bonus for Employing non-US Graduates”,

The US government’s “Optional Practical Training” (OPT) program pays American companies to employ foreign graduates over the head of Americans, and in the 2017 financial year “swiped” $2 billion from trust funds for the elderly to favor 240,000 alien college graduates over an equal number of U.S.-resident graduates,” a new report has revealed.

       

The study, produced by the Center for Immigration Studies, said that “employers of foreign students who have a degree from a U.S. institution are given an 8.25 percent tax break if they hire an alien, rather than a U.S. college grad with the same skills, and paid at the same salary.”

Worked out with FY 2017 data, this means that some 240,000 American workers are adversely impacted by this program (shouldered out of jobs by the subsidized aliens), the CIS report said, adding that the subsidies to hire the foreign alumni are extracted from the Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment Insurance Program trust funds were estimated to be in the area of $1.98 billion.

The program has had silent but bipartisan support; it was created by the Bush II administration without any congressional authorization, was subsequently expanded by the Obama administration, and has been tolerated by the Trump administration.

The employers benefiting from the subsidies directly, and universities benefiting indirectly, know all about the program, which is all but unknown to the older Americans subsidizing it, and is similarly unknown to the young U.S. college grads who are hurt by it.

“Given this twisted political dynamic, inertia, and the total silence of the media on this point, the program persists and grows each year,” the CIS report continued.

The report went on to quote what it called an “obscure” United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) document that shows the number of approvals of (EAD) Employment Authorization Documents by category, “EADS by Classification and Basis for Eligibility, Oct. 1, 2012 – June 29, 2017.”

This document shows the numbers of OPT/EADs (usually good for one year) issued to F-1 college graduates, as well as the number of extensions for F-1 alums who had studied science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM), and each of these, recently, has been good for two more years.

The CIS research added the most recent regular OPT and STEM/OPT estimations to the prior year’s STEM extension data to get a current estimate of the number of subsidized jobs held by OPT aliens (and thus denied to U.S. workers) at the end of FY 2017.

Data were available for only the first nine months of FY 2017 so, assuming a constant flow of these applications, the CIS researcher multiplied the available number by 1.333, which produced this:

* Estimated regular OPT for FY 2017: 153,646

* Estimated STEM extension for FY 2017: 44,073

* Reported STEM extensions for FY 2016 : 45,184

* Total: 242,903

This the CIS rounded down to 240,000 to account for some returns to the old country and some movements to other visas, primarily the H-1B, but probably some conditional green cards for those newly married to citizens or green card holders.

Then the CIS took the 240,000, and applied a guess of $50,000 a year for these jobs (it is probably rather higher for the STEM people) and multiplied to get a rough idea of the total wages. It comes to about $12 billion.

Since employers and employees — routinely — each contributes 8.25 percent of the salary to the trust funds, this indicates a loss to the funds of 16.5% of the whole, or a total annual loss of $1.98 billion.

“So the government is giving almost $2 billion in tax breaks to American employers if they hire alien — not resident workers,” the CIS report concluded.



Post a comment:


Name: (required)

Email: (required but not displayed)

URL: (optional)

Note: You should copy your comment to the clipboard or paste it somewhere before submitting it, so that it will not be lost if the session times out.

Remember me


Next entry: Dōgen
Previous entry: Europeans, Asians and racial ambiguity: where to draw the lines?

image of the day

Existential Issues

DNA Nations

Categories

Contributors

Each author's name links to a list of all articles posted by the writer.

Links

Endorsement not implied.

Immigration

Islamist Threat

Anti-white Media Networks

Audio/Video

Crime

Economics

Education

General

Historical Re-Evaluation

Controlled Opposition

Nationalist Political Parties

Science

Europeans in Africa

Of Note

Comments

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Fri, 22 Nov 2024 00:28. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Thu, 21 Nov 2024 12:46. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Wed, 20 Nov 2024 17:30. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Wed, 20 Nov 2024 12:07. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Mon, 18 Nov 2024 00:21. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Sun, 17 Nov 2024 21:36. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 18:37. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 18:14. (View)

Manc commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 17:30. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 11:14. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:04. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Mon, 11 Nov 2024 23:12. (View)

Manc commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Mon, 11 Nov 2024 19:02. (View)

James Bowery commented in entry 'Nationalism's ownership of the Levellers' legacy' on Sun, 10 Nov 2024 15:11. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Fri, 08 Nov 2024 23:26. (View)

Manc commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Wed, 06 Nov 2024 18:13. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Mon, 04 Nov 2024 23:48. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sat, 02 Nov 2024 12:19. (View)

Al Ross commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sat, 02 Nov 2024 04:15. (View)

Al Ross commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sat, 02 Nov 2024 03:57. (View)

Al Ross commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sat, 02 Nov 2024 03:40. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Fri, 01 Nov 2024 23:03. (View)

Manc commented in entry 'The legacy of Southport' on Tue, 29 Oct 2024 17:21. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Mon, 28 Oct 2024 23:14. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Fri, 25 Oct 2024 22:28. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Fri, 25 Oct 2024 22:27. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Thu, 24 Oct 2024 23:32. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Wed, 23 Oct 2024 16:37. (View)

James Bowery commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Wed, 23 Oct 2024 14:54. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sun, 20 Oct 2024 23:23. (View)

Manc commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Fri, 18 Oct 2024 17:12. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'What can the Ukrainian ammo storage hits achieve?' on Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:51. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'What can the Ukrainian ammo storage hits achieve?' on Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:44. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'What can the Ukrainian ammo storage hits achieve?' on Mon, 14 Oct 2024 11:19. (View)

Al Ross commented in entry 'What can the Ukrainian ammo storage hits achieve?' on Mon, 14 Oct 2024 05:59. (View)

affection-tone