I work, therefore I am – May Day 2019 Reflections
Yes, of course, the title of this piece derives from the famous declaration of the 17th century French philosopher, Rene Descartes: “cogito, ergo sum” . Thought, thinking, not feeling, not spirituality, is the distinguishing mark of life, of existence? Yes, that is what Descartes said and meant. The issue has been debated for centuries and I do not want to get into that discussion in this piece.
Indisputably, the great majority of us humans work, either to put food on the table or – which amounts to the same thing – to avoid the precariousness, the indignity of being dependent on others for our livelihood. That’s the bottom line and it goes all the way back to the last stages of “natural full employment” in the hunter-gatherer societies of the past.
On this occasion of the marking of this year’s workers’ day, I charge my country and its political rulers with the monstrous crime of the social death of millions of our peoples. And what exactly is social death? It is the amalgam of forms and expressions of widespread despair, insecurity, immiseration and panic in the poor and jobless segments of the population, forms and expressions that are both open and hidden, docile and aggressive, desperate and at the same time palpably manipulatable.
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