Friday, March 27, 2015

Workers Unite

Karl Marx said to the proletariat class, “Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.” This is a relevant statement in today’s society. For example today in class we watched a video about a woman, along with others, trying to raise the minimum wage to fifteen dollars. I believe that this should pass. Minimum wage is low, and this would help the poor to afford a more substantial and comfortable lifestyle. This also goes towards the second point Marx made on how the struggles of classes becomes violent under capitalism. He mentions how although the bourgeoisie and proletariat participate in the act of production the mode of the distribution of goods does not correspond to the contribution of each class. If the minimum wage were to be raise this would eliminate this dispute. The way wage is distributed in today’s society correlates capitalism because the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Another way minimum wage hurts the proletariat is by alienating them from the product of their labor, the process of production, his/her species being, and from other human beings. It goes against Marx’s beliefs and reduces the workers into being products of themselves.  

4 comments:

  1. I agree that a $15 minimum wage should be passed, and it wouldn't be a sudden jolt to the low wage. The last increases were slow and steady over several years and helped prevent a panic from those in charge of the businesses. $15 from $7.25 is a large increase, the largest ever, so it would take significantly longer (possibly 10 years based on the rate at which the last increase came into effect), but it is necessary considering how the rest of capitalism's jobs and prices and moved on without those working the minimum wage jobs.

    I am one of them.

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  2. I would love to see minimum wage increased. However, I do not think t would be ideal. As we discussed in class, the minimum wage may increase but then the prices of the products would also increase in price and it would be as if nothing changed. So in the end I do not thing the problem would simply be solved by raising the minimum wage.

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  3. I agree that the minimum wage should be increased, but not to $15.00/hour. We had this debate in my high school World History class and my teacher told us that her daughter, who worked as a labor and delivery nurse, got an hourly wage of $16.00/hour. So that means you could work extremely hard to get a nursing degree and have one of the most important jobs relating to human life (delivering babies), and make only one dollar an hour more than people who flip burgers. If the minimum wage raised that much, so would a lot of other people's wages. And I doubt this would happen without the prices of everything skyrocketing. Something needs to change, but the government needs to figure out a way in which the change would be beneficial to everyone.

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  4. I truly agree because my mother was a working class woman and because she worked so hard just to make ends meet we hardly ever got a chance to see her, we had to raise ourselves. If we look at the world to today you can see that the children of the world are totally out of order because no one is there to train them anymore their parents have to work two and three jobs just to make ends meet, they leave one job and have to go to the next, hey everyone is not fortune enough to make something of their selves when there is no guidance in the home. If workers would unite, come together as one then I guarantee their voice will be heard and wages go up. Happy workers make happy sells, happy everything!

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