mountains of useless drudgery

“his work is servile…he is paid just enough to keep him alive; his only holiday is the sack……consider what pleasure it can give anyone to think of men swabbing dishes for life. For there is n doubt that people, comfortably situated people, do find a pleasure in such thoughts. A slave, Marcus Cato said, should be working when he is not sleeping. It does not matter if his work is needed or not, he must work because work itself is good, for slaves at least. This sentiment still survives and it has piled up mountains of useless drudgery. I believe this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, simply a fear of the mob. The mob ( the thought runs ) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if they had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think.” -George Orwell Down and Out in Paris and London_____________ denying the mob the leisure time to think or the assets that would make that leisure possible is a continuing theme in orwell’s writing…and there is validity to that view…the elite fears the mob’s number and they hate a populist ( the root of the n y times and Washington post’s loathing of don trump…not his arrogance or pre-teen behavior…it was his appeal to a populist base that fired them up )…and the current “gig” economy has people jumping from part-time job to part-time job…juggling schedules and working long hours to make ends meet…the mob may indeed be discontent in this but they are exhausted by the stress and so fatalistic…”that’s just the way it is” is something i hear a lot…but few are pondering “why” that’s the way it is or what might conceivably be done about it…so why do we keep working…we all need material goods to survive…food, clothing, shelter…so there is the survival element of work that keeps people at it…there is a dichotomy at work here however…the hegemonic culture long ago discovered there is money in necessities…their greed also told them there wasn’t enough…there had to be another method of extraction that paid better…and the solution was to pay the mob marginally more…not enough to make them truly comfortable…but enough to create the appearance of comfort…or, at least, to allay the fear of imminent death from starvation or exposure…and then take back that small excess and a little more by engineering desires and establishing a system of credit…debt makes new money far faster than selling shoe laces and razor blades…raise the level of debt to meet income…people are still hustling to pay the bills…but the bills are larger because of the perceived need of “stuff” engendered by a materialist propaganda system that tells us what we need…which is another convenient way of keeping the mob balkanized by “branding”…ford/chevy…nra/gun control…democrat/republican ( with both parties in the pay of the elite pretending to be ideologically opposed while cohabiting )…pepsi/coke…which beings up a germane point…i read an article on line about coke preparing to introduce “a new flavor” and the fact that “people are nervous”…well… is orange-vanilla coke which admittedly does sound frightening ( and remember you are dealing with someone who cut soda [ along with hfcs ] out of his diet eleven years ago…i may be biased )…there were some twitter posts quoted in the article…both in favor of and questioning the need for a “new” flavor…there was one that was both germane to my point and instructive ( i think anyway )…” soda is poison but i will be first in line for orange vanilla coke”…are we branded or what? i left out the twitter handle…mostly so i don’t get a lot of blowback from the preprogrammed robot that posted it ( or the corporate shill that was paid to do it )…a fair example of reflexive consumption…habitual…no wonder they do so many surveys and mine data on facebook…or google…or wherever they can…orwell is correct…we do this to ourselves… he said that if the mob thought it would have organized a union and gone on strike for better treatment…that’s one habit we have not developed yet…too busy debating coke.