Reading Denning, Shouting Crass

Do They, in fact, owe Us a living?
Crass, in their highly imitable fashion, pose a fundamental question for our time: do ‘they’ owe ‘us’ a living? We’ll assume that the ‘they’ in question refers to capitalists or those in power – the Man, as it were. The ‘us’ is a bit more ambiguous – Crass don’t appear to be referring to the working class or, more generically, ‘the people’. The lyrics refer to those in school who are constantly shit on, those who become outcast over time, the scapegoats, and the teeming masses constantly attacked for their vice-ridden ways by media elites and politicians. It seems apparent, then, that they are demanding a living for the social rejects, those who become principal targets for attack when the economy is down or disaster strikes, and for those who unable or unwilling, for a myriad of reasons, to assimilate into society. We could call these the unemployed, the underemployed, the never employable as well as the rejects and burnouts (and anarcho-punks). After describing the players, they then claim that it is self-evident that these same, those wit limited organs for self-defense or advocacy – and thus not the working classes, especially in the early 1980s when the attack on said class was still in its birth pangs – are owed a living by society.



While we may, with clenched fist raised, shout “Of course they fucking do!”, this claim is not self-evident. Based on the society in which we live, where wages are necessary to survive, even our capitalists work – work being understood as a waged activity in which the employee produces surplus value. When even the wealthy work, the claim that those who don’t work shouldn’t partake in the goods that society produces can, upon first inspection, seem reasonable. Beyond the question of whether this is ethical – a concern that doesn’t seem to occupy those pushing through austerity measures anyway - it should be asked under what conditions the un- and underemployed have a right to society’s wealth. In other words, under what conditions might lyrics written by an anarcho-punk band be true?

As Michael Denning’s recent essay in the Nov/Dec 2010 issue of the New Left Review details, the category ‘unemployed’ has only been around since 1886. Before our own age, of course, farm and family labor were still more prevalent than waged labor and various theological or humanistic poor laws provided a modicum of support for those without the ability to sustain themselves. Anyway, the arrival of a new category points to a problem that as yet had not been visible: the inability of a society based on competitive waged labor to provide sustenance for those in its orbit. A problem that, as Denning points out, will come to also include those locked into the informal sector: a condition inherent in the slums of the world but becoming increasingly popular throughout the capitalist world. Under older and now mostly extinct forms of social life – say feudalism or hunter/gatherer societies – there were societal mechanisms for feeding and caring for those who had been made unable to perform labor. Under capitalism, where to work is a burdensome privilege, the situation is different.

In the early 20th century, churches, unions, communists and anarchists provided material support for those without. The latter two were persecuted relentlessly by a state that then developed programs to augment their loss during a Great Depression in which need was generalized throughout the industrial world. Churches and other philanthropic organizations continued feeding the poor, but they did so without working to transform those structures that kept their charges impoverished. Unions, to a great extent, accepted the lie that it was their labor was the motive force of history and, thus, worked for trade protection rather than people protection – to put it tritely. Now, as the economic crisis burrows deeper into the Western world, states shed the safety nets that bought social stability and unions find that the advantages they fought for, sometimes against the needs of those who were unemployed, are being systematically stripped by a voracious foe. At a time when wealth polarity is reaching historic highs – 400 US men control more assets than 150 million US citizens - those who have nothing are in worse straits than ever (yes, ever!).

Under capitalism, it should be apparent, no one is owed anything! As the current crisis is making evident, even the contracts employees sign – supposedly the legal foundation of our juridical system – are not owed to them (a particularly stark contrast to those contracts the finance and home loan industries sign). Under our current conditions, the only thing anyone is owed is competition – regardless of the impediments individuals and groups might bear. The only way that changes is by thinking a beyond to the current conditions of life. So, in response to Crass: (with fist still raised) no they don’t, no they don’t. All those – employed, unemployed, underemployed, students – who are unsatisfied with that need to think a dangerous thought – things as they are today are not natural and, therefore, must be changed. Do they owe us a living? No, we have to take it our fucking selves!