what was the work for?

“at bottom, one now feels when confronted with work, and what is invariably meant by work is relentless industry from early till late, that such work is the best police, 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.” fred Nietzsche___________ “i am trying to consider the social significance of a plongeur’s life” “a slave, marcus cato said, should be working when he is not sleeping. it does not matter whether his work is needed or not, he must work, because work in itself is good, for slaves at least. this sentiment still survives and it has piles up mountains of useless drudgery. i believe this instinct to perpetuate useless work is, at bottom, fear of the mob. the mob ( the thought runs ) are such low animals that they would be dangerous if the had leisure; it is safer to keep them too busy to think.” george orwell__________ “what was the work for?” wiliam t. vollmann__________ fred george and bill are certainly coming down in opposition to established wisdom in questioning the efficacy of work as it is now constructed…it is true that we all need material goods to survive and in the capitalist world that means we all have to have money and the accepted way ( the way that meets with positive social sanction ) is through work because then the hegemons can extract both labor and lucre from the proles as they mindlessly brand themselves with coke/pepsi ford/chevy and whatever else you’d care to name in the way of consumer goods and political buzzwords that pass for thought on public issues…nietzsche, orewell, and marcus cato all see work as an effective mechanism of control…let the proles exhaust themselves meeting those engineered desires and let them snipe ( figuratively and literally ) at one another, rather than us, over those branded divisions...the difference is that cato is one of the hegemons …which should be a line of evidence in favor of fred and george …who are asking you to stop and take a closer look at exactly whose favor this all works out for ( and here I should mention bob black’s outstanding essay “the abolition of work” from back in the reagan days…like bill vollmann he is putting the question in a broader context of the entire paradigm of work as it is now practiced...they both move beyond fred and george’s theme of control of social behavior and pretty much question work as a concept )…how much stuff do we really need and does it make us happy ( epicurus…you should have a look at his ideas too…the questioning how much material stuff we need and whether it generates happiness or buyer’s remorse is an old question ) or does it just make the oligarchs wealthier?