In Spain workers now have to sacrifice their labor for the sake of the banksters

By Glen Wallace

The New York Times article For Spaniards, Having a Job No Longer Guarantees a Paycheck , seems to be describing a situation in Spain that is more dire than how it appears in the mainstream media here in the U.S.   Apparently there is a fairly widespread problem over there of people with jobs getting paid either very irregularly in small amounts or not at all.  Often the workers not getting a paycheck see few options since they think they will have even less chance of finding another job at all if they leave there current  employer.  But on the other hand if they try to hold their employers publicly accountable for the non or slow payment of wages, the workers are afraid that will hurt the business they work for so much that it will tip over into bankruptcy. 

I had no idea this was going on over there.  I imagine many will blame their plight on socialism.  I would tend to disagree and if anything lay the blame in the opposite direction on the capitalist bankers that encouraged and profited from the indebtedness that has lead to the current European crisis.

The economic systems that we all live under exist not because it grew out of nature or as some law of physics, but out of the decisions of fallible humans.  None of the people featured in the article had any goal or expectation of living lavish lifestyles off of the income they were assured of from their employment.  Rather they just wanted to live a simple modest life from the fruit of their hard work in their jobs.  But now even though they are working and many more in their country are willing and desirous to work and be productive, they are struggling just to keep a roof over their heads by keeping up with the mortgage payments.  Isn't that kind of a funny expression -- 'keep the roof over our heads' -- I mean, where is roof going?  Is it blowing away and you're trying to hold onto it?  Of course not, but economics is supposed to be fundamentally about the relationship between humans and the material world that makes up modern civilization.  Those of us who are satisfied with a modest standard of living should demand an economic system that supports a symbiotic relationship between our participation in that system and an adequate maintenance of its supportive economic structure.  The roof is not going anywhere,  it is the bank that is deciding that the people living underneath the roof must go and the law enforcement that is supposed to be advocates for the people show that in reality they are advocates for the banks when they use force or the threat of force to evict the people living underneath the roof.

 It doesn't have to be this way -- remember, the laws that govern our economic system are not laws of physics but are rather malleable rules created by humans.  One of the individuals featured in the story, who is owed $13,000 in back pay, is a woman working in a factory hand rolling paint onto tiles.  I wonder how many square feet of wall space in houses all those tiles she has painted could fill?  I ask that question because I wonder how much labor is really needed to support a smoothly running modern civilization where most citizens simply want to live a modest life with a modest roof over their heads.  What if we were to forget about the big banks and debt?  Could we create a system that functioned solely with the goal of first meeting the basic needs of food, shelter, water, sewage, heat, electricity as the top priority and look to how that goal can be met given the available resources of labor and land.  If, and only if the basic needs for modest living are met, then those that are especially ambitious can be allowed to pursue a few extra niceties and comforts of life - but only if doing so in no way depletes or takes away from society meeting the first priority of basic needs.   Instead, in our current bankcentric economic model, I'd be willing to bet that tile painter is, in effect, through no choice of her own, sacrificing her labor in order to make sure debt obligations are met that keep the banksters living in luxury.  What kind of economic system allows that sort of injustice?  Clearly a rotten one that needs to be tossed into the compost bin.  And from the lessons we have learned we can grow a new fruitful society nourished by the soil fertilized by the mistakes we now know to avoid.