reading nietzsche

"at bottom one now, when confronted by work, and what is invariably meant is relentless industry from early until late, that such work is the best police, that it keeps everybody in harness and powerfully obstructs the development of reason, of covetousness of the desire for independence. for it uses up a tremendous amount of nervous energy and takes it away from reflection, brooding, dreaming, worry, love and hatred; it always sets a small goal before one's eyes and permits easy and regular satisfactions." frederick nietzsche. "the dawn"___________________ i'm not sure fred's quite nailed it down here...he has some of the elements, but it seems to be more of a statement of nietzshe's distaste for factory work ( and, by extension, i am assuming factory workers ) than an unbiased assessment of the state of the worker...the need to work does indeed direct " a tremendous amount of nervous energy" away from lengthy reflection on a system that is extractive ( some would say extortionist ) to the core and based on the few enjoying wealth at the cost of the many ( despite what thorsten veblen and fucking ayn rand say )...but work is symptomatic of a consumerist system that is the real policeman...it does not place "a small goal before one's eyes and permit easy and regular satisfactions"...rather it engineers desires for more and larger...for new and novel...and it seeks to preserve itself by engendering an imperative of competitive consumption as the path to social status across the whole spectrum of society...from highest to lowest "more" is instilled as the greatest ethical good which keeps people working...marvin harris maintained that debt was the prime mover of the west's cultural materialism but i am inclined to think that "more" is the imperative and that is the true source of debt and is the mechanism that impels the system...economic obligation based on consumerist competition is what shackles us to work...that it serves to keep people in line is a bonus for the elites who putatively control things ( that they are embedded in an ecosystem is something their economists have dissembled to them about and all that ignorance is about to come home to roost in smaller everything including wealth...everything carries the seeds of its own destruction...capitalism too )...old fred has a lot to say about the angst and alienation that characterizes industrial work in his writings ( as a classicist he seems to also have a gross fear of anything "modern" ) but i believe they are based more on a traditional german romantic ( nietzsche is nothing if not a romantic ) abhorrence of the industrial revolution and all that entailed rather than its impact on working masses.