The title may sound a bit absurd. But how many of us don't work with blood, sweat and tears? Time studies take place at workplaces. The aim is to get the most out of the worker in the shortest possible time as often as possible. If the worker cannot live up to this, even if only by a few percent, she is ashamed to death. In the end, many people get sick from this.
And there are rules and penalties for more and more people to sacrifice their health for productivity. Employment agencies and the insurance fund's staff bow under rules they must follow. School staff, heroes of care and those who work in care as well. It stresses them and it stresses their users.
Unhealthy working life
Every year, 30–50 people die in work-related accidents in Sweden. 700 die from work-related stress every year. However, work-related diseases still account for around 3000 premature deaths annually. Many who take their own lives have previously been bullied in their workplaces. ( Swedish Work Environment Authority ) Statistics from the Social Insurance Agency show that in December 2022, 42,591 people were on sick leave for at least two weeks due to stress. Twelve years ago, in the early 2010s, the corresponding figure was just over 9,310 people. ( TT ) At the same time, austerity does not increase productivity.
The iron-clad wage law
If someone gets sick, it is a full-time job to follow all the rules. Ideally, a sick or unemployed person should get well or get a job through death insurance. Many times it is the most diligent who get sick. Then they will be ashamed for the rest of their lives because they gave everything to the work until the body or the soul gave way.
There are rules that require you to apply for the toughest job you can get. According to the iron-fisted wage law, this means that jobs become tougher for everyone due to competition. Previously, there was an unemployment insurance fund that aimed to put the right person in the right place. If there was a lack of skills, society would assist with labor market training if study funds could not be obtained. In some cases, labor market training was a complement to municipal adult education and university. At the same time, there was a well-developed public sector to meet all of society's needs but also to ensure good conditions for employees so that the unemployed would not have to bow down to private employers. The result was that we had an industry and economy among the very best in the world.
Our greatest desire is to buy a TV where the commercial messages will make us want to shop more so that we need to work more. Today's wage slavery is well depicted in the documentary " The Happy Worker ".
The stress of the young and strong
Everywhere we see pictures of young, strong, beautiful people who love to sweat hard in the gym and not indulge in anything useless unnecessarily. When there are elections, it is unnatural for the exhausted people to vote for better working conditions, a tolerable salary and a decent welfare. Instead, you spoil the party for everyone else if you suggest the idea that we could vote for cheap, good and beautiful housing for everyone. You spoil the party if you are not normal, successful, happy and thoroughly good all the time. The only righteous thing is to vote and make others vote to work ever harder for lower pay in the sweat of their brow. Shame on anyone who has not given their last percent of their energy and of what they have produced to the authorities.
The gaps shine
The other side of the idealization of the toil of the low and middle income earners is that this goes to feed the great abundance of the small elite. One's asset is another's liability. At the beginning of 2023, 5 Swedes owned
According to information on Dagens PS, in 2023, the five wealthiest Swedes owned a combined wealth that exceeded the sum of over five million other Swedes. The decade before that, 61.5% of the total wealth generated in Sweden had ended up with the wealthiest one percent. At the same time, the poorest 50 percent had not acquired any wealth at all.
According to the Swedish Tax Agency, the richest ten percent owned 73% of all assets in the popular, tax-advantaged ISK share accounts in 2022. In 2019, the Swedish private individual had the second highest debt in a comparison between some European countries according to Statistics Sweden . It was 427,000 SEK/person. With a population that year of 10.28 million, this meant a total national, private debt of 4,389,560,000,000 SEK. All of these debts are someone else's assets in the bank.
The consequence is the abundance of the small peak
When the state does not create money, money is created by keeping the people poor. Then the people are allowed to borrow. When the people borrow, the banks create the money they lend. High rents on apartments cause more people to borrow, especially to buy their own homes. When taxes are too low and the banks instead of the state create money, we cannot afford schools, healthcare, care, the environment, the climate, technological development, pharmaceutical research, welfare, pensions and railways because the rich need more luxury yachts and swimming pools. The question is whether we can afford to work without a state, expansionary fiscal policy as the early 1900th century labor thinkers said?
Until the cuts began in the 1970s, we had an efficient society that protected the conditions and well-being of low- and middle-income earners. Since neoliberalism began to be introduced in the 1970s, we have been working harder and harder to make the very richest better off. Assembly line workers are supposed to produce more and more per day without their wages rising at the same rate.
It says the blog post was written in 2022. Is that right?
Yes, but updated afterwards so it is current.