On 2013-10-07, at 10:29 AM, Carrol Cox wrote: > Overwork and penury are both effective forces of repression. The danger of > shorter hours for capitalism is that leisure time breeds left political > activity.
I don't know that you can say that. The oppressively long hours of highly exploited workers in the mines, mills, factories, and fields were a major contributing factor to the unrest which spawned the early trade union and socialist movement. Though the pressures are mounting, today's office workers have relatively more leisure time and better conditions, but it has not translated into left political activity remotely resembling that of earlier generations. Quite the opposite, as we know. I'd look first to the combination of severe exploitation, the demand for labour in an expanding economy, and the concentration of the industrial workforce in factories and factory towns and neighbourhoods as key factors which produced militant and often violent protest at the turn of the last century. These conditions are no longer present. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
