Capitalism wants us to keep going
that's why we have to stop
I’ve been losing my hair and I finally gave myself permission to sneak to the doctor’s office this morning. I say sneak because I didn’t want to ask for time off because I’m always scared that it sends a signal to my supervisor that I’m not serious about my job. It’s true I’m not serious about my job, but I’m serious about keeping it because my family relies on me to have this job. My husband told me that I should have taken the time off. That I get sick leave and I should use it. However, we all know that taking time off is frowned upon. Even places that claim to laud it will get a little annoyed if you have to keep not working because you have a little boo boo or a big boo boo. I am a person who is completely anti-capitalist and even I fall into that trap of feeling guilty about taking time off. I have these feelings because capitalism conditions us to keep going on even when we should stop going on. This is because capitalism can only exist through the exploitation of our labor.
That’s why after a man killed people in Buffalo, New York over the weekend we kept going on. That’s why after a man killed 21 people, 19 of whom were children, we all woke up this morning and went to work. Biden said the best he can do is fly the flag half mast. Seriously bro, you are the president. If you are going to choose to do absolutely nothing about this violent world that we live in, the least you can do is call a whole day of mourning, hell a whole year of mourning. We have a lot of mourning to do but that doesn’t matter, the billionaires need our bodies to work even if this means we are crying while working. They don’t care about anything but collecting their metaphorical gold bars, and because they don’t care, the government doesn’t care. The government is only interested in what rich people want, so wipe those tears and get right back to work.
We can’t keep going on like this. We need time to grieve, for the children lost to gun violence (from individuals and the state), for the Black people lost to racist violence, for the Brown people lost to imperialist violence, for all the people lost to COVID because of capitalist greed. They won’t let us grieve because grieving gives us time to acknowledge that there are so many problems and the people in charge aren’t just not solving those problems, they are responsible for those problems. We know that there is something deeply wrong, and in order to prevent us from doing something, they keep us working. They keep us working so we don’t have time to organize and fight for a better world. Instead, we look to them to save us when they are the ones drowning us. The only thing they care about is wealth and our labor gives them that. That’s why we have to deprive them of our labor and spend that time to come up with a solution for what ails us. We have to save ourselves. If we don’t, we will always be in mourning.