Posted on 09/06/2009 2:39:24 PM PDT by Arman Z. Calbay
The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated in 1882. Now every year, classes at any US university start just after Labor Day. The labor issues are interesting not only to economic department students; every student thinks about life after graduation. Hired workers are a large part of the population, and therefore, a question almost everyone asks himself from time to time is how to get job.
"You should be able to sell yourself", career consultants usually say, when you go to them for advice. Then they move on to how to improve your appeal as a worker, speaking as if you were just a mechanism. Some unpleasant comparison, isn't it?
This view ensued from some 19th century economists (Marx was the best known of them), who considered that relations between a worker and an employer is something like a sale. "America has a workforce of over 150 million," U.S. Department of Labor notes, "And every year over 50 million workers change jobs." If one follows the above mentioned idea, along with trillion sales of the usual goods in stores, there always occurs no less a wide-scale sale of manpower in economy. Is this really so?
I believe that it is completely incorrect. Why? The simplest answer is: because it contradicts a fundamental principle of freedom. Our capitalist society proclaims the principle of man’s absolute freedom and directly forbids the sale of a man as well as his labor. Now we perceive personal freedom as something that goes without saying; however, actually this principle appeared only 300 years ago. If you have told an ancient Roman aristocrat or French duke of Louis XIV's time that a slave or common peasant is absolutely equal to them in rights, they would be very much surprised. Only 150 years ago, there were people in the United States who sincerely considered the societal division of slave-owners and slaves completely normal. But now when we hear about cases of slavery somewhere in god-forsaken places of Africa or Asia we are horrified.
It would be a mistake to think, however, that the question of freedom is only a legal one. Fixation of the principle of freedom and equality in the Constitution is only the visible part. Social and, first of all, economic factors play an even larger role.
So, to find out whether a man is a commodity (like some thing), we need to go somewhat deep into basic economic concepts. And the very first question is terminological: what can be sold and in general what is a commodity.
Traditionally the concept of a commodity is connected with consumption and necessities. A necessity is usually an aspiration to restore an ability or to acquire something. So, for example, a worker consumes a meal to restore physical forces necessary for him for subsequent labor. Similarly, we need houses to live somewhere, cars to move faster, books to satisfy our intellectual needs, and so on.
The economy, where there are market and money (this is any economy except for the economy of Robinson Crusoe), assumes that any necessity can be satisfied by means of purchase. In other words, something can be called a commodity (i.e. can be sold) only if it is able to satisfy some necessity.
In addition to man's necessities, the contemporary economy makes demands also for industrial buildings, equipment, software, etc., which cannot directly satisfy the necessities of man. They are united under the term “investment commodities”, and their applicability is to satisfy the "necessities" of production. For example, a factory "consumes" new equipment to replace the worn out.
So why can’t a capitalist buy a labor like any machine tool? The answer is simple: because labor cannot directly replace or restore capital. In other words, there is no main condition of commodity – the ability to satisfy the necessity (in this case, the factory's "necessity").
By the way, this situation is mutual, i.e., a labor also cannot consume investment commodities (or capital). For example, industrial equipment is absolutely useless to the worker. Similarly, meal, clothes and other consumer commodities have no value for an enterprise because they cannot be used in its operation directly. Thus, capital and labor cannot be each other's commodities.
As soon as manufactories began to play a powerful role in the production process in the 18th century, the necessity to secure legislatively the dependence of one man from another disappeared. If slave-owning and feudal systems were societies of non-freedom, then to be rich in a capitalist system, there is no need to own other people; it is enough to own capital.
Slavery was based on the inequality of people and only violence could support the existence of such an order. The purchase of a slave was possible because the slave was reduced to an instrument status. In contemporary society neither man, nor his labor (which is an integral part of the man) can be sold. Moreover, now these are, perhaps, the only things which cannot be sold!
So, economic reasons and legal regulations tell us that an employer cannot encroach on a worker's personal rights and freedom. Then what is hiring for work? Actually hiring is some kind of a contract for access to capital, an agreement to joint activity between a capitalist and a worker. The connection of capital and labor is dictated by technology, and separately they cannot produce anything. It is a mutually advantageous process, which assumes cooperation absolutely equal in rights.
Both of them, the capitalist and the worker, receive an income after some period of production: the capitalist obtains profit, the worker gets wages. The known fact that a worker receives wages only some time after hiring serves as the obvious proof that the worker does not sell labor to the capitalist (otherwise, he would get the money right away, because a commodity is usually paid immediately at purchase). He acts as some kind of partner for the capitalist, receiving his share usually after the product made will be sold in market.
We can compare hiring for work with the actions of an entrepreneur who wishes to become a supplier of components or services for a large corporation. In this case the entrepreneur does not sell himself; he just wishes to become a business partner for the corporation. The corporation does not need an entrepreneur: it needs steady deliveries of components (or services) for acceptable prices. Accordingly, the negotiations between the entrepreneur and the corporation can either succeed or fail.
Every day thousands of negotiations will occur all over the world. Negotiations between workers and employers happen even more, because there are more workers hired than there are entrepreneurs. However both of them negotiate not to sell their freedom, but to have an opportunity to produce something.
Speaking about an interview with a potential employer, everyone remembers the applicant’s intonation and psychologically uncomfortable feeling which occur at it. Many feel themselves in the role of a commodity; however, I hope that having read this article, most will change their view and come to the interview with another feeling.
So, sitting in an armchair facing your potential boss, remember that no matter what the result of this interview will be, your freedom always remains with you. Nobody can encroach upon it, at least not in this society.
Hello Newbie. Welcome to Free Republic.
Others will soon be here to join me in zotting you.
Ooops. I mean welcoming you.
Selling one’s self? As in prostitution?
Sometimes it feels that way, don’t it?
Hmmm......
That is a lot of BS that has maybe a few basic salient points. Basically, this reads like your average college paper. What kind of discussion do you hope to provoke with this?
You guys might want to drop over here for a bit...
I’m seeing the terms Capitalist, workers, freedoms, intonations, etc being used in contexts that really offer no discussion....
....what point, exactly, is it you’re trying to make?
“Selling one’s self? As in prostitution?”
A more honorable profession than what goes on in D.C.
I guess the point is totally lost on you and the author, but selling yourself means showing a potential employer that you're the best person for the job....just like a salesman sells a car. I guess the word "competition" is above your vocabulary level.
The clown that wrote this thinks it's selling yourself into slavery or something similar.
I guess this points out just how pitiful our liberal education system has gotten.
Damn right.
Very well stated capt. norm!
Ping!
My question to you is; Are you going to sell yourself to others here by commenting on your article and the responses generated? Or are you going to be just another in a long line of post and run posters? I don’t feel like commenting on your work if the latter is the case.
You really do sell yourself when you get a job. Think about it. You are presenting your best image to the employer when you are being interviewed. The employer has to decide if you are “worth it” when he hires you. After all, there may be contracts to break, union issues, possible discrimination lawsuits, etc, if he decides he made a mistake and tries to fire you later.
So, you make an effort to convince him that you aren’t just the perfect employee today, but will remain so for as long as you are in his employ.
From the standpoint of an employer, the perfect labor market is one where all employees are temps and are waiting for work in a huge, inexhaustible pool where an employer can decide what he needs for the day, pick up the phone, and have qualified personnel show up immediately to do the work, get paid, and leave until needed again.
Fortunately for the workers, most employers need to hire for longer terms to insure that their manpower needs are always met but every hire does involve some risk on the part of the employer. Whoever “sells” themself best will probably get the job beause they make the employer feel comfortable.
That’s true. Its one thing to sell yourself. Its another thing to sell out your country.
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