Is Labor the System of Oppression?

Is labor the system of oppression? I ask this because I am curious. It is currently Labor Day, and for many government agencies and some other industries, they are taking this day off across the nation as a national holiday for the United States.

Labor Day itself is a holiday that came from the brutality of the late 1800s labor movement during the Industrial Era, also known as the Gilded Age. The Pullman Strike of 1894 was a catalyst for this holiday. Railroad workers protested wage cuts and even harsher company conditions, which caused a lot of... ruckus. To calm down tensions, the decision of President Grover Cleveland was to send in troops to reduce the tension. One way to reduce tension is to open fire on a crowd. Effective.

Unfortunately, this brought a huge media blitz and backlash because a death toll of around 30 people, especially the hard workers who built this nation, is a bad look. Shortly after, a holiday that was only adopted by 23 states was quickly made a national holiday, thus adopted across the nation and recognized. The goal from Grover's perspective is that this holiday is to honor workers and recognize the contributions that the labor force across the country does for the prosperity and development of the American Experiment. A history of progress built upon death, unfortunately, is an underlying story.

Labor Before Labor Day

Though labor did not begin just in 1894, it has always been a tool for societal progress. All nations have, to a degree, utilized some form of labor. The system we're in now trades time for money. Some systems of the past provided barter for time. Though some systems do not feel a necessity to quantify someone's labor even though it provides the beneficiary of said labor a quantifiable result.

Although labor was finally acknowledged as a tool that made this country greater, a tool that built the country to be what it ultimately became was chattel slavery.

Stolen Labor

This blight on American history and atrocious and inhumane treatment of other humans based on familial ownership built wealth for many landowners and people who enslaved other people across the country. The labor was provided to do all manners of work, from breeding mills to create more workers/people to sell, to working in the fields, working in mines, and all manners that are expected of someone.

Some of this labor revolved around specialty trades. The main home in Monticello, designed by President Thomas Jefferson, was primarily built by people who were enslaved by the former president. Now, this is no rare occurrence. It was quite common.

Their labor was not considered theirs.

As a result, for years there was no acknowledgement of the world that was being built by their hands, through their labor. Then the Emancipation Proclamation came and most of the country "freed" those who were enslaved, and the final emancipation underneath chattel slavery happened in 1865 in Galveston, Texas (known as Juneteenth), where the last bit of the nation's illegally enslaved people were informed that they were freed. Later that year the 13th amendment formally abolished slavery across the united states. Still afterwards, the labor was not as much acknowledged.

Who Controls the Labor?

So as we take today and observe the labor provided, with some people still at work making our nation run, and as we have for generations given a return on labor to some who have maintained a sense of authority over it, what does a world look like where the authority is no longer in the hands of others? Is that a possible world?

Now, the system that we are in, for a majority of people, requires one to provide one's labor for typically something of monetary value: hourly pay, salary pay, etc. Seeing a world that does not require labor isn't too difficult of a conversation. For instance, there can be a linguistic difference in use. Say I do not believe a world would be better without work. A world could thrive without labor, though.

Let me land.

Work Without Labor

As we develop, grow, use technologies, become more symbiotic with our environment, and take care of the planet, we could potentially reduce the "typical working day" for monetary gain substantially. Where the labor we provide is the work we want to do on a grand scale. Technology can potentially change the control.

Labor has been in use and has been controlled by others, whether it was animals or humans using other humans, but now technology can be an avenue to advance the control over the labor.

There is research being performed within the construction industry on VR systems where operators can remotely operate heavy machinery and excavation equipment from a distance. Mobile robots are able to lay out floor plans for commercial buildings based on BIM (Building Information Modeling), and there is surveying of acres of land performed with aerial drones, checking changes on a periodic basis. These are just a few of the technological advancements within the construction industry. This is a step towards reducing the labor necessity of an individual person.

The Abundance of Time

Though the hours in a day do not change, we will still have 24 hours. We as humans will still probably want to work. Work as in create. Work as in fish. Work as in build community, etc.

This work creates ownership for the individuals, even potentially a diversified collective ownership.

As we celebrate and admire Labor Day, hopefully labor, in due time, becomes something that is no longer extrapolated from others, and the dark concrete history of labor can become a rose of abundance that grows from it.