In this discussion, Dr.Shiva sits down with Truth Freedom Health® Warrior-Scholars to talk about what exactly IS work. And if we’re going to build a working people’s movement, we need to know exactly what a worker is.
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Dr.SHIVA LIVE Conversation: What is Work & What is a Worker
Key Points:
- Dr.SHIVA Ayyadurai, MIT PhD – Inventor of Email, Systems Scientist, Engineer, Educator – has a conversation about What is Work & What is a Worker with a guest panel of Truth Freedom Health® Warrior-Scholars.
- The speakers included women and men of different backgrounds, nationality, religion and age. After the recap of Dr.SHIVA’s videos and comments from the panel, Dr.SHIVA took calls from the audience to discuss their concerns.
- Panelist discussed: Comment on a Reddit site, which says, “Anti-work: unemployment for all, not just for the rich.” And it’s the attitude of saying, the way you fight the man is you don’t work when you go to work.
- System Science is very powerful in that it allows you to understand the Elites have devalued the labor of the Worker. And it also makes it very clear that we need to fight for Working People and the Wages the 1% have stolen from the Working Class, and that we want Truth Freedom Health®.”
- We have to have Working People Unite, otherwise, the nature of Work is going to be completely diminished and we won’t have infrastructure, proper food and the Elite will robotize everything.
- Starting in 1970 workers’ wages were stagnant while $74 Trillion of our wages went to Elites like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. What are we to do? We have to Build a Movement.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
worker, movement, capitalism, system, people, goof, job, proletariat, work, called, company, money, point, build, elites, lumpenproletariat, anti work, non worker, workers, skill, work ethic
Dr.SHIVA Ayyadurai: Good evening, everyone. It’s Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai. We have a Special Event for you today. We have a bunch of guests, Heather, Tonya, Bob, Jason, and Jason. Two Jason’s. And we’re going to have a discussion today that is a follow on to a discussion we started before. And it’s called, it’s basically going to be a conversation: Work and the Worker, What is Work? And What is the Worker. It’s a very, very important discussion. Because we use the word “Work.” And we use the word “Worker,” a lot of people use these words. Just like we use the word System or Money and all these things. And these are very powerful words. But have you ever thought about “What is Work?” And “What is a Worker?”
Last week, I think, sorry, at the beginning of this week, I did a discussion to just review for everyone, I did a discussion on “Workers Unite, But What is a Worker?” And so, this is a follow on, because we want to have a conversation. Most important, one of the things you want to do is you want to, our guests, our panel is going to give their opinions on a bunch of this. And we’re going to open up the phone lines so people can also share their ideas. But earlier, I did this talk on “What is Workers Unite?”. And What is a Worker?
And in that discussion, what I talked about, first of all, I invited everyone to join our Foundations of Systems Course, it’s very important that people actually get educated on how you Build a Movement. We have our Course. And as a part of that I also shared with you that there’s this intersection of Truth Freedom Health®.
These three movements need to be connected: the movement for Freedom, which is we’re fighting for Free Speech, the right to discourse, the ability to actually do Science, to get to Real Truth and understand what’s right for our Health. All these three movements are disparate, our Movement recognizes they need to be integrated because without Freedom, you can’t really practice Science. And without Science, you can’t find out what Health is. And without Health, we don’t have the wherewithal to fight for Freedom and Truth.
And we also invited people and we still invite people to every Thursday, we do our 11am and 8pm Orientation. We had a great one yesterday. But anyway, in that discussion we went through, and we said Hey, what’s sort of the, you know, the standard definition of work? Well, one definition is “a person who works, especially one who does a kind of work. And that work is defined… “to do something that involves physical or mental effort, especially as part of the job.” So that comes out of the quote/unquote,” prestigious” Oxford English Dictionary.
But the Physics Definition of work as you take an object and you’re physically moving it. This is if you took basic physics class, Work is Force times Distance. So, here’s a guy physically moving this box a certain distance. And work is defined in terms of Energy, where you have Force, where he’s putting a certain amount of force, Force is Mass X Acceleration, which is measured in Newtons. So, you have 700 Newtons, and he moves it two meters. So, 700 times two would be 1400 Joules. Joules are actually meters in Newtons anyway, not to get into all the Science.
That’s a different definition of work. So here you have the Oxford English Dictionary. Here you have the Physics. Karl Marx had a definition of work and the worker, right, which was very famous. He used the word proletariat. And that’s what people typically remember. And he defined it as individuals who sell their labor, meaning you sell your labor for wages, and you do not own the means of production.
And he argued that they were responsible for creating the wealth of a society. But what people don’t know is over the years, we also talked about that, this term, and by the way, Marx, you know, just to Marx was a prolific Writer, he was an Economist, he was a Classical Liberal, like Adam Smith of his times, he did a lot of retrospective view to understand what was, you know, Capitalism.
90% of what he wrote was about capitalism, 99%. Only very small, he sort of projected to communism. But much of the stuff that’s taught in business school actually comes out of Karl Marx, you know, basic concepts of surplus, value, labor, all these kinds of things. But anyway, what people don’t know is Marx also had another definition of something which was the antithesis of the worker. He called it the Lumpenproletariat. And Robert Bussard who, you know, was commenting on Marx’s definition, he said the Lumpenproletariat, according to Marx, was the parasitical group.
They acted out of self-interest. The Lumpenproletariat was easily bribed and could be used to combat the true workers. And this is never talked about and Bussard went on to say the Lumpenproletariat exploited society for its own ends and was in turn exploited as a tool of destruction and reaction of the proletariat. And we also have Frank Licata joining us. Let me bring Frank in.
Frank: Hey, how are ya?
Dr.SHIVA: Frank, we’re just reviewing what I discussed in the previous talk. So, and then Nikolai Bakunin, another Philosopher of a lot of these areas in the 1900’s said, “the Lumpenproletariat lack discipline, they have the impotence to construct anything new.” They don’t, or they’re not really interested in building anything new. And I guess the best reflection of this is in a recent Reddit group, there’s a bunch of Millennials who created a group called Anti-work. And their slogan is “Unemployment for all, not just the Rich”.
The reason I wanted to review this is so when you look at this, so when you look at this, what you really have is these different colloquial definitions of work and the worker, read the Oxford English Dictionary. You have the physics definition. You have the economic definition; Marx was really the one who best articulated that.
But you also have the antithesis of work, which was the Lumpenproletariat. But what’s happened over the years is people like Bernie Sanders AOC, large segments of the quote/unquote “Left” have really redefined worker to actually mean the Lumpenproletariat.
Someone who hangs out doesn’t work, wants to scam the system, and they want to create conditions where you can scam the system. Because Bernie Sanders himself scammed the system. The guy never, I don’t think he ever worked a day in his life. I think he was a failed erotic novel writer, failed carpenter. But somehow, he became a politician.
But that’s what we want to talk about. So, in this discussion, I want to first of all, go around and introduce different people. And if you guys can each just take a few minutes and just say, you know, where you’re from, what you do for work right now, you know, and the various jobs we’ve done, that would be valuable. Let’s start with, let’s start with Bob Smith. Go ahead, Bob.
Bob: Okay, can you hear me all right? So I’m Bob Smith, and I am a New England sales manager for a steel company. And I’ve been selling steel for probably almost four years. Prior to that, I worked a wide variety of jobs. And I’ve observed in the workplace, a lot of different types of workers, some for good and some for bad.
Dr.SHIVA: We’ll come to that, Bob. Just give sort of a background. We’ll come to that part of the discussion. But you were in sales and what are the other kinds of work you did, Bob?
Bob: Oh, you know, between high school and college, a waiter, taxi driver, worked in the cinema, caddied. I tried to sell pots and pans. I actually went to college, got a civil engineering degree and thought I wanted to be an engineer. Didn’t work out. And I luckily got into sales from there. So, I’ve seen a little bit of everything in the workplace.
Dr.SHIVA: Alright Bob, thank you. Let’s go over to Jason. Why don’t you tell people where you’re from and what you do?
Jason V: Okay, my name is Jason. I live up in Maine. Right now, I’m working in a warehouse. I actually was working at a place for over eight years, and then COVID and all that.
Dr.SHIVA: Jason, can you bring the mic closer to you because we’re getting a little bit of static. Yeah, go ahead.
Jason V: Can you hear me better? Sorry about that. I had to find a new job due to COVID. I was working at a place for eight years. So now I’m working at a warehouse. It’s really close to my house. And it’s you know, it’s not bad. I like it. It’s hard work, but it pays pretty good. They always need help. So, there’s like a sign-on bonus and stuff like that. And like I said, the best thing about it is it’s four miles from my house.
But over the years I ran a small landscaping business. When I was younger, I worked for general contractors. I learned a lot of carpentry and stuff. And I was, I was a welder for a number of years, mostly fusion welding. I was in the Union, the Labor Union out here in Maine. So that’s my background… did some roofing and some other stuff as well.
Dr.SHIVA: Alright, thanks, Jason. Let’s go over to Heather. Go Ahead, Heather.
Heather: Okay, my name is Heather. I’m in Oregon. And when I was in high school and college, I babysat, waited tables, pumped gas, and worked for a corn seed company in the summers. As a teacher, in summer times I mowed lawns, I tutored students, I ran summer school programs.
Dr.SHIVA: But our mother too, right?
Heather: I’m a Mom now. I have a preteenager and so I’ve been homeschooling him. And taking, taking a leave of teaching to give my child the attention he deserves to have. And it was, yeah, it’s been an interesting adjustment to teaching my own child instead of a classroom of other people’s children.
Dr.SHIVA: Alright, good to have you, Heather. Let’s go over to Frank Licata. Frank, why don’t you tell people what you do and just your vocation, Frank, and we’ll come to other parts of our display.
Frank: Yeah, my name is Frank Licata, I’m in Massachusetts. I spend quite a bit of time in New Hampshire as well. Went to school for Engineering but wound up flunking out of college. Didn’t get into the trades. Became a, yea college, what a waste. Became an electrician. Did the night school and whatnot and not and apprenticed and all that and became an Electrician.
Quickly after working for other companies, I realized that the boss was making all the money and I wanted what he had. So, I decided to go into doing what I had to do to get into business for myself. And it’s been over 30 years as self- employed. And I enjoy it. I enjoy the freedom it has. It gives me it’s a great living and all that and there’s a shortage of us out there, the blue collar really.
One thing I noticed is I opted not to go into the Union, I was invited several times. I opted not to. I have done some great work, which means I’m non-union, but I’m working alongside my union counterparts. And I do notice a huge, what you’re talking about in your talk, that huge Lumpenproletariat attitude of “do the minimum”.
In fact, they would constantly tell me, “Slow down, you’re making us look bad” like because I’m a hustler. You know, I like to get it done. And my day goes by quickly. And their mentality was no stop, slow down, take a coffee break. And that always stuck with me. And I never really wanted to be part of that. And I never really knew why until the recent discussion you did, Dr. Shiva. So, I’m learning a lot.
Dr.SHIVA: All right, Frank. Yeah, so before we go over to a couple of other people, I just wanted to point out to people, there’s you may have seen this movie called “The Big Short”, Christian Bale played it. It’s about a guy who actually knew that the Stock Market was going to crash. And he was the one who predicted it in 2008. And he made a ton of money because he shorted the whole market. He’s an actual Medical Doctor who, who ended up doing, you know, investment, became his sole business. But this article came out very, very recently, to Frank’s point, it just came out.
Dr.SHIVA: This just came out just a couple of days ago. It’s a “Big Short investor Michael Berry expects pressure on white collar wages– and points to Tesla firing workers as evidence.” And he basically in this article, he says that what’s going to happen is that the value of blue-collar workers is going to go up incredibly, because there’s a lot of these white-collar workers who basically got these jobs, and they really aren’t that productive. You know, there’s five jobs which one person can do. But we’ll come back to that. But it’s a very interesting set of things and this just came out just a couple of days ago. But let’s go over to Tonya.
Tonya: Hello, I’m Tonya from Indiana. I am currently a Real Estate Agent or in referral in real estate. I realized there were changes happening in real estate pretty early on. I got into it after the ’08-‘09 when the market really crashed, when they were doing all the bad mortgages. And I saw a trend towards not doing bad mortgages, but just changes in the industry. We’ll say that. And then with COVID and everything they wanted me to wear masks at closing tables, showing houses.
They added a lot of regulations, a lot of paperwork to showing houses. And I decided then to, it took me about six months to really go into referral. But before that I’ve always been in sales. I’ve sold cars, I’ve sold water, I’ve sold the environment. I’ve sold vacuum cleaners for about a week. Let’s see what else… waited tables, babysat when I was, before, I could have a job/job. Babysat, mowed lawns, shoveled snow, whatever, whatever it took.
But yeah, I totally agree with Frank, there’s definitely you can tell the difference between an hourly worker and a salaried worker or someone who works for themselves. Because people who work for themselves or make money only when they produce, bust ass when they’re at work, you know. They’re there for 8 9-10 hours until the job’s done. And then they get paid. Where you have hourly workers that are there for 40 hours, and they’re just there to like, do 20 hours maybe?
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, so Tonya will come we’ll have a, we’ll come to that because we want to have that conversation, what you’re talking about, Frank we’re talking about. But to the audience out there, I just want to let everyone know that everyone on this call here is a part of our Truth Freedom Health® Warrior-Scholar Program. Our movement is a movement made up of actual Working People. So, you have Frank, a Master Electrician, Bob, who’s done Sales, and in the construction area, Jason V has been a Welder. The other Jason L who’s done Cooking, Tonya, you do Real Estate, is that right? Yes. And then Heather, who’s a Mom and an Educator.
Our Movement is about building a Bottoms-up movement to Unite Working People Beyond Left and Right. But we wanted to have this conversation to have “What is a Worker and What we’re seeing in the Workplace.” So those of you just joining us, in the previous discussion I talked about the fact that we have done lots of videos, our movement does a lot of exposing of how the Elites are essentially suppressing Freedom, suppressing Truth, and suppressing Health, right. That’s why our Movement is for Truth Freedom Health®. To overcome that.
But as a part of that, what becomes a behavior now of the, so you as a person, a sincere, hard working person, observe this, and you’re in the workplace, or you’re trying to do an honest day’s work. So, what should your interaction be with the world? That’s really the question. We want to sort of segue into that. So, you’ve become, in some ways, a conscious Systems Conscious Worker understands this. So, what should your role be? Should your role be to scam the system now? Is that being you know, an agent of change?
Should you go to work, and we’ve had this, I’m sure you’ve had this, we have people who, they don’t last here too long. They come to work, watch pornography, literally, and 67% of males are doing this at work, by the way right now. Okay, watch Netflix, don’t really do work, talk to their friends, chat, do email, all sorts of stuff.
And maybe they work in the middle of all these interruptions when you really look at it, 10 to 20% of the time. And this is what’s going on. It’s not only occurring in places that you’ve seen, it’s occurring in large companies, government organizations, private organizations, particularly with the COVID home stuff that took place, right? Many of those people, as that Reddit thing I just walked through, believe that this is how you are being an agent of change.
In fact, there’s a whole Reddit site, as I shared here before, that by going for Anti-work, then you’re really screwing the Elites. So, let’s now, before we open up the phone lines, and we talk to people, I want to ask our workers here, people who actually work for a living, what you’ve observed in the workplace, where you’re showing up to work, and what you’re seeing in the workplace, and we’ll start with Jason. Go ahead, Jason. Jason, not Jason Long. The other Jason. Go ahead Jason.
Jason V: Okay. Oh, yeah. You missed Jason Long, too. When you get a chance. He didn’t. He didn’t introduce himself.
Dr.SHIVA: Hold on. Hold on. Before I go.
Jason L: Let’s do that first. All right.
Dr.SHIVA: Sorry, Jason. There are two Jasons. Jason, why don’t you tell people what you do? Go ahead Jason, and we’ll go to Bob because I know Bob’s got a, he’s got an engagement at eight. Go ahead, Jason.
Jason L: Hi, I’m Jason. I’m from Michigan, and I am currently cooking. But in my lifetime, I’ve had around 40 different jobs. And
Dr.SHIVA: Jason, your headphones, they’re not working that well. We’re getting an echo. Can you come closer?
Jason L: I think it’s the room that I’m in. It’s quite big. But I’ll try to talk louder. I’ve had a, I’ve worked in 40, I’ve had over 40 different jobs and worked in 10 different professions. Mainly though I’ve cooked though, as a profession, but I’ve also installed car stereos, I’m a Reiki Master, I paint oil pictures. I’ve had a lot of jobs. I build decks, you know, I’ve worked with carpentry. But that’s pretty much some of my background.
Dr.SHIVA: And Jason, did you go to school for a lot of these skills? Or you picked them up?
Jason L: Yeah. Yeah, I didn’t go to school for any of that. It was cool to be a gym teacher. And I have, I have taught for a little bit, but a lot of that drive was to Coach Football.
Dr.SHIVA: Okay, cool. So, thanks, Jason. Sorry, I missed you. So, let’s go over to Bob Smith. So, what we want to now move the discussion to is, you know, sort of, if you want to use this as a talking point, here’s a Reddit site, which says, “Anti-work: unemployment for all, not just for the rich.” And it’s the attitude of saying, like, the way you fight the man is you don’t work when you go to work.
And it’s actually 1000s of people on the site talking about this. So, Bob, why don’t you share what you’ve seen in the workplace over the years, and how it’s changed, and the positives and negatives and sort of attitudinal change about work? Go ahead, Bob.
Dr.SHIVA: Bob, we can’t hear, gotta unmute yourself. Hold on.
Bob: There we go. Sorry about that.
Dr.SHIVA: And speak a little louder Bob, go ahead.
Bob: Yeah, so I’ve noticed, you know, over the years, working for different companies, the non-worker or the goof-off, as I’ll call them, it almost seemed comical at first to me, the lengths that people would go to, to avoid work. But then you realize, you know how bad it is, I mean, the worker is pretty simple. You produce goods and services. But the non-worker, they don’t realize that, if there’s enough of that going on, that you get more people riding in the wagon then you have pulling the wagon.
And at that point, the company’s out of business, or in the case of society, it just leads to a collapse. It’s unsustainable. I was once told by a boss and he sounded pretty profound to me that the only real job security is to be a productive employee of a money-making business. And I think a lot of people don’t realize that there’s a lot of opportunism. It’s, you could call it laziness, you could call it opportunism or… some of its human nature.
Bob: But I think the bottom line, you know, people have a responsibility to be responsible workers. But given the situation, I think it’s up to management to manage it. So, you look at for example, with COVID, and everybody working from home. So, people have a golden opportunity to goof off. If management sets goals, and those goals are met, you’ve done your job.
You know, whether you spent two hours doing it, or it took him 12 hours to do that. So, I think that a key factor here in the workplace is better management. I mean, yes, as employees we have responsibilities, responsibilities to our co-workers, our friends, fellow human beings. But I think it’s incumbent upon management to take over and set goals; goals that are achievable, measurable, and I think that’ll take us a long way to fixing the situation.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, Bob, I just put this up. This is an interesting article that came out in Psychology Today saying “Research reveals that 70% of internet pornography happens during work hours 9am to 5pm. There’s a link between viewing porn and unethical behavior. Dehumanization of co-workers may lead to sexual harassment, etc.” I mean, this is a article talking about a bunch of other things, but it’s about professional ethics, and what’s going on at the workplace because of a lot of access that we have to devices now. So let me.
Bob: They say, they’re just you, you’re scamming your friends and your co-workers. And you’re creating a dependency. And a big part of it is you’re neglecting personal growth. If you spend your time and your efforts in perfecting the art of goofing off, you might as well just be working, put that effort into the workplace. Yeah.
Dr.SHIVA: Yes. So, let’s follow up with what Bob said. And what we talked about a couple of weeks ago was we did a video on, if you guys remember in modern monetary theory, how basically modern Capitalism has progressed to a stage where it’s becoming Imperialism, monopoly Capitalism. You have a few sets of very large companies. Because the question, Bob, is, why is this occurring, right?
And you see it occurring more and more and more. You have these devices, right? It’s easy to be distracted. So, if you have this phenomenon, where you have this, you know, in two years, I think 600 Billionaires quadrupled their wealth to $2.3 trillion. So, you’re a hard-working worker, and you observe what’s going on.
You observe that the government just prints money, whether it be Obama or Trump, right? Money’s getting printed, your work–labor of money’s being devalued. So, you see all that nonsense that the Elites are doing, right? So, you have that phenomenon. And then Bob, what you said, you know, you’re coming to work, and then you already have this goof-off.
So, the question then becomes, what are workers supposed to do? By being goof-offs, is that the way that you quote/unquote, “organize” against what’s going on? Or is it another process? Right? So that’s what we want to talk about, right? Because a goof-off may act as though and that’s what’s happening on these sites telling people, “Hey, let’s all start goofing-off”, right? Look at and you’ll see they throw up pictures of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, etc. So, in that context, Tonya, I know you work in office environments, what have you seen? And how is that affecting workplace? But if you can share your thoughts, Tonya?
Tonya: Well, I noticed it more because in Real Estate, every, almost everyone who works in Real Estate, you work for your paycheck. You aren’t salary, or hourly. But out in the general public, I recently rented a car and had horrible customer service, going out to eat, you get horrible customer service. It’s just and literally had an employee say, well, they’re trying to work me. And I’m like, where are you? You know, you’re at work, you’re supposed to be working. And it was, it was a crazy thing. I also recently heard about the “Quiet Quit”, which is basically telling people how to be Lumpenproletarians and go to work and not work.
Dr.SHIVA: What is it called?
Tonya: It’s called the “Quiet Quit”.
Dr.SHIVA: The Quiet Quit?
Tonya: The Quiet Quit, like Quit Work. And there’s several videos about it. It basically is exactly what you’re talking about. Going to work and not working or doing as little as possible just to stay employed.
Dr.SHIVA: What you’re saying Tonya is, Bob is talking about goof-offs that he’s seen who don’t respect work. But then there’s this actual movement of people who are consciously saying, “the way that I’m going to fight the system is to go to work and not work at all,” right?
Tonya: Right. Exactly.
Dr.SHIVA: That’s very interesting. That’s very interesting. Frank, what do you think about that? I mean, Frank works on his own. Right. And Frank, you said, you don’t even take on any apprentices. Right?
Frank Licata: No, I don’t have that kind of patience, to be honest with you. I mean I would have somebody that skilled, you know, the same as me, work with me, just because they would, I wouldn’t have to train them. But to what the, the lady was saying prior, I work as a subcontractor in a lot of companies like a lot of commercial industrial companies.
And I have seen that but I’m not from the perspective of an employee. I’m not in their little click the little goof-off, click. I’m there to do my task and get out. But it’s like for that one day, it’s almost like I’m one, I’m hanging out with them. And I see that, you know. And I have to laugh. I said, well, whoever owns the company is paying for this stuff, you know, and they want, they want value. You know?
Dr.SHIVA: Now, Frank, these are typically large companies, right? Like you said, I think….
Frank: Pretty big. Yeah, some of them are, you know, VC funded in the billions, and, and so forth, and the private and public. And that’s kind of a common thread, though, people like hiding in the in the, in the back room, you know, goofing-off or whatever, just when they’re supposed to be working.
Make it look good. And then a lot of times, like the facilities management department will say, hire me to do a certain task, you know, to make them look good, really. But I don’t care. You know, I get paid for me for my time there. But it’s definitely a different attitude when you’re employed versus when you’re a sole proprietor or self-employed. It’s extremely… it’s night and day.
Tonya: It’s your money. It’s your time.
Frank: Yeah, well, even if I’m getting paid hourly, I still don’t goof-off. Because I just, the day goes by quicker for me, when I work hard. It goes by really fast. So, whether I’m doing something for a fixed price, you know a fixed price, obviously, you want to bang it out quick, because you’re gonna make more. But even hourly, it’s like, I got so many things lined up, I just want to get it done and move on to the next one.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, Frank is interesting what you say. The reason I asked about the size of the company is that another one of our Truth Freedom Health® Warriors, he was saying he works at a very large company, very big bank. And he said there are people who come to work there. One of the guys every Monday, and every Friday, he calls in sick with a stomach ache.
And another guy joined work, and then didn’t show up for three months. His boss was afraid of doing anything. And this comes back to what Bob was saying: Management, right? And didn’t do anything. And this guy is the one who had to complain, because all the work fell on him from these two guys.
Dr.SHIVA: But these were two goof-offs and what why, but they’re even more interesting. The reason they were quote/unquote, “sick or taking three months off”, is that in the tech world, if you’re an IT person, or tech person, there are companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook, these companies, like large companies have amassed so much wealth over the last two years, right, because what happened over the last two years? The government printed money, gave it to the banks and the banks essentially sent it to the stock market. They didn’t really disperse it.
A lot of large companies are filled with cash. So those companies have, basically you don’t, they have breakfast, they have golf courses, they have ping pong, they have free lunch, they have free dinner, they have free everything. So, they’ve created a culture where it’s sort of a country club culture, because they have so much cash, they can afford it. So, if you’re Facebook and then imagine the six of us, seven of us here, we started our own social media company, a small startup.
How are we supposed to compete with Facebook because we hire somebody, the guy that we hire is looking over at Facebook and saying, Wow, everyone’s goofing off there. So, they come to our work, use the experience. These are young people doing this, goof-off learning how to get the interview.
There’s apparently interview exams, and they use their time there. And then they’re going to the large company. What’s happening is the small companies, they hire IT guys, let’s say to have their own data center to do their own thing. They can’t sustain it. They lose all that time, right? They’re losing, you know, they spent all this money.
And then they have to outsource their IT work to Amazon, which is where all the big guys are. You have this vicious cycle happening where the small entrepreneurial firms can’t really sustain the Country Club Model. Because the large guys can support the Country Club Model. We have this very interesting, like Abbott, you know, the big company who did the baby formula shortage.
There’s three companies that make baby formula. It doesn’t matter what they do, they have so much money, right? They can even be goof-offs. So, the goof-off factor goes up in these large companies. I’ve always said if you became the Chairman of IBM or anyone just randomly fires people, and no one will even know the difference, probably even in the government. And you’ll be seen as a great hero. But, Jason, what have you seen in your… I mean, you’ve done so many different things. What have you seen about attitudes out there?
Jason V: Yeah, I’ve seen it all you know, I’ve seen a lot out there. I’ve seen a lot of.
Dr.SHIVA: No, Jason Long, Jason Long. Go ahead Jason.
Jason V: Oh, I’m sorry.
Jason L: Yeah, I definitely. Can you hear me now?
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah.
Jason L: All right, I definitely am experiencing this in the food business, as I’m currently in the restaurant, you know, super heavily, as only if you go back and I started in the late 90s, where, if you referenced the gross product index, you know, it was a lot better then. There was a lot more money to flow around in the restaurant business, where there were at least 1/3 times as many workers.
Right now, we don’t even have workers to choose from. And the ones that you do choose from, they’re running in there, they’re we’re running into this problem where, you know, 20 years ago, there were no phones in kitchens at all, where now people are watching movies in kitchens currently, you know?
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, it’s interesting you say that, Jason, because I don’t know if people have seen this in restaurants, the quality of service, and maybe it’s because of this. I went to a fine restaurant, and I ordered, you know, what I thought was a nice piece of steak, the guy comes out an hour later, and he delivers me something that has nothing to do with that. It’s a completely different slice of meat. It Looked like a sausage, it wasn’t a New York strip, right?
Jason L: The quality of employees to choose from is very, you know, you’re not going to get necessarily what you want, you know, right? They could go somewhere else and make $15 an hour, you know, where they can be Lump. You know what I mean? They can be one of these Lumpenproletariat ones, you know?
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, so let’s go to Heather. What do you think about the quality of what’s taking place out there? What are you seeing in terms of work? And the quality of output that’s coming out?
Heather: Keep in mind, I haven’t been in the classroom in about 10, 12 years.
Dr.SHIVA: You talk about teachers? Well, yes. I mean,
Heather: Teachers, as a majority, I think really have their hearts in the right place, and really give a really tremendous effort to, to their job. What I did see, however, is I feel like there’s a correlation in grant money and output of work. That’s where the worker just kind of becomes an employee. There’s not a great incentive to produce. Because it’s almost as if the more incompetent folks are, the longer they receive the funding. Does that make sense?
I’m thinking of some specific government programs, because I worked with some special populations in schools. And I also worked as an auditor and identification and recruitment coordinator for a government agency. And just seeing what really happens on the inside and how people manipulate others into qualifying for certain programs just to receive support, was pretty eye opening to me, it was pretty astounding.
In fact, my last job, I was working with a group of students at an alternative school, middle school and high school students. And they knew the system inside and out for obtaining funding for education, housing, phones, food, health care, and that’s great for those who need it. But to utilize that and not focus on the education component, which is what they were really there for was pretty eye opening as well.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, I think Heather, what you’re, I think what you’re talking about is people scamming the system, right. But the issue is, let’s sort of unpack what you just said. So, people scam the system, right? I think Frank, you and Jason and Tonya, people go to work, they may work for themselves. They may work in an organization, they may work at home, right? There’s one set of people, wherever they work, they have a certain set of ethics, and they’re going to work hard, right? They just internally feel wrong not working. Right. There’s another set.,
Heather: Yeah, I was seeing that, I was seeing that from the educator point as well. They were, they were scamming, they were gaming the system in order to keep employment. It was more helpful to them to maintain a caseload and to be really lazy and not let those people go and I’m meaning students that had passed like state assessments that should have been moved on because they had the academic skills. Does that make sense? But the teachers would keep those children back as well. So. Sorry, Dr. Shiva.
Dr.SHIVA: No, no, that’s fine. So, what you’re saying is, is that so? You have students who should be moved through the system that people keep these so-called, they brand students as bad students, so they could keep a caseload so they can keep getting certain benefits. Is that right?
Heather: They could keep getting funding, you keep getting federal funding for your classrooms. You can get “oh boy, let’s get new football uniforms for this group.” Teachers just keep their employment. They have a much greater caseload, but they’re not challenging the students. And…
Dr.SHIVA: Let’s – given what you guys have just shared, let’s, we’ll open up the phone lines. Let’s talk about the conversation and if we can sort of, look, take this perspective: you have people who work hard, right, Frank, doesn’t matter what happens, you’re going to work hard, and you don’t trust apprentices. You know, Frank’s done a lot of great work here for our movement, you know, from doing all sorts of things Frank will help us do. And it’s always excellent work, you know. There are people who just do excellent work.
When I was growing up in New Jersey, you know, I mowed lawns, I was working, I’ve been working since the age of 14. But I was trained to paint and do landscaping by immigrants from Italy and immigrants from Yugoslavia. And these guys were just perfectionists. And one of my earliest experiences was a painter who came from Yugoslavia, I painted homes, and he goes, You know, we were cutting the corners of the edge of a thing. And he goes, “Look, if you’re gonna do work, do it with excellence, because your name goes on it.”
And so, I learned that. Whatever I did, it didn’t matter if anyone was looking at me or not. My ethos was, you should just do great work. It’s almost like labor itself has great value. And many Philosophers have talked about this. At the deepest level work is supposed to be a reflection of you, right? And the quality of your work really reflects you at a very deep level. Right?
So, what’s happened over the years is because there was a time when capitalism was very entrepreneurial, thriving, right? It incentivized people to be creative. And over time, it went from that very vibrant phase to what we have now, Monopoly Capitalism, right. And that, in many ways, has destroyed work. Like the meaning of work, right? Someone just wrote, you know, people were put on these assembly lines on sweatshops, right? It would be in some ways crazy to say, oh, yeah, someone should value their work when they’re all they’re doing is putting a little transistor on a little iPhone all day. Right? Right, doing one little thing.
So that’s why you know, you have machines and robotics coming. But there is very demoralizing and demeaning work, right. Or people observe that their work is not being valued. So, the question I want to talk about is, at that point, what are you supposed to do? Let’s say you’re a sincere worker, and you’re doing work that at a certain point drives you crazy? Are you supposed to become a goof-off?
Or what are you supposed to do? Or like Heather, you scam the system, because you’re seeing around you infrastructures breaking down? Right? The broad mass of hard-working people aren’t getting the benefits they need, right? The very wealthy people get to send their kids to wherever and you get, you have to send your kids to public school. So, you get into the model, you’re observing this, you’re working your butt off. What should you do? Let’s have that conversation.
And let me I’m going to put the, to those of you who want to call, if you can share with us, I just we have a call a number you can call 617-631-6874. But as we’re waiting for people to call in, what do you guys think about that? So, you have this situation where there is a decadence that’s taken place, right? By pandemic, right? 600 Billionaires increase their wealth by $2.3 trillion.
Heather if you’re probably one of these, are these people goof-offs? Are they scammers? Or is it because they don’t know what to do? They don’t have an alternative. What we’re building is a movement. We’re saying, look, we need to work and people need to come together, unite, go beyond Democrat or Republican or Labour or Tory, and we need to build a Bottoms-up movement. Right? So Frank, did you want to say something to that?
Frank: I would say that if you get to that point where you’re just feeling like a robot and you’re not feeling valued, then just find another job? I mean, just move on. There are so many opportunities out there. You know, if you’re, if you don’t like being the guy putting the transistor in, go to night school, get educated, get it, get it? There’s plenty of opportunities.
Dr.SHIVA: I think, in the United States, we have more of those opportunities. But if you’re a worker working at an Apple factory in China, right, or in some other place, you have less opportunities, right? It’s a little bit different, right? But you’re right. In the US, we do have those opportunities. The working class here has a lot more opportunities than probably people in other countries, relatively. What do you think Jason? Either Jason.
Jason V: Yeah, I was thinking the same thing as Frank. And you know, maybe it’s just work ethic, but it’s like, you know, if you’re not happy, and I’m not saying that I’m happy every day, I go to work. But if you can’t take it anymore, you find something better before you goof-off. And, you know, let the rest of the workers carry the load, because that’s what you do when you goof-off. You know, somebody’s got to pick up the slack. And like, you know, like I said before, I used to run a small landscaping business. And you know, I’m sure Frank knows this. When you have somebody that you hire, and you know, like you were saying, that work that they do reflects on the owner of the business. All right.
Dr.SHIVA: We have someone calling in. Hello, who do we have? Please?
Kristin(caller): Oh, Hi, it’s Kristin Falvey. Out in Worcester, how are you?
Dr.SHIVA: Hey, Kristin, good to have you. Tell us what your thoughts are. Go ahead.
Kristin(caller): I love this topic. And I’m thinking a lot about it because as you may know, I work in Human Services. And I see all kinds of… work with people who are trying to get these benefits. And I’m going to talk about sort of like lower income, but I like how you’ve previously elaborated how this, this doesn’t just affect, like the upper classes, all the different walks of life, and it’s kind of related to work ethic. So, I have clients that, in a way, I’m employed because of people who are trying to get benefits, right, because of all these programs and things and some people genuinely need them.
Interestingly, I just had the kind of person who’s homeless, and I said, you know, people like yourself, this homeless girl, you guys aren’t asking for help. It’s the ones again, you actually need it, you know. So, I see these people, they completely know the ins and outs of the system, and how to get whatever. And again, even at the CEO level, like, like you said earlier, it’s like the people at the top of the food chain are just probably not doing much work.
So, I don’t know, I think it’s really interesting. And I’m glad that we’re having this talk. And I don’t really have much else to say, but I just find it very interesting. There are a lot of benefits out there. And I commented earlier too how I do kind of think it comes down to how people are raised. Like if you’re raised with a work ethic… I know a lot of immigrant families, that seems like we have a good work ethic. And then other people who come from generational poverty, it’s like they’ve been kind of taught how to get these benefits.
And like, that’s all there is. So, I don’t know if it’s just a mindset, or what. It’s like a mental thing. But at the end of the day, like you said earlier, valuing, like you talked about, just having excellence in whatever you do, whether you’re sweeping the floor or building a computer. It’s all important. So, valuing your work. That’s it. That’s all I had to share. But thanks for letting me speak.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah. Thanks, Kristen. I think one of the things, Kristin, what you’re saying is that, again, I want to go a little bit deeper into what you just said. So, if you look back at the 1960s, right, when the Vietnam War movement, some people may remember this right? The United States invaded Vietnam, you know, to fight the Red Scare to fight the Communists. We go 10,000- 20,000-15,000 miles, halfway around the world, and send 17-year-olds to go fight this War, right. And when that War took place, you had suburban kids who didn’t want to go to that war. They didn’t want to work, right? They didn’t want to be in that Military, right?
The movement in the early mid-60s went into a phase where you had this counter-culture movement. And a lot of people don’t know about this, but so the idea was, we’re going to scam the system, right? We’re gonna go against the man. And it was not about building a Bottoms-up movement to stop that war by recognizing working people had tremendous power. It was a lot of the quote/unquote, “Liberal Elite”, a guy called Abbie Hoffman, right.
He would drape the American Flag, paint his face in, you know, like these Flower Power, you know, there were these Flower Power movements. They didn’t really have any political depth, right? They thought smoking weed or dropping acid or, like you basically grow your hair out long or like you do these counterculture things against your parents, against the man, and that was going to be revolutionary, and that was going to stop the war in Vietnam.
Dr.SHIVA: The analogy here is, you do have serious exploitation of Working People. We know that, right? In the last 50 years working people, wages have been stagnant, productivity has gone up 77%, the .01% have profited from that. The majority of working people on this call we haven’t, right.
Our wages have essentially stayed flat. So, you look at that real phenomenon, just like there is a physical war going on in Vietnam, people are being sent to fight for essentially the Military Industrial Complex. But what are you supposed to do? Well, one set of the Liberal Bourgeois,
Hold on, we’re just gonna bring someone in. Hi, this is Dr. SHIVA, who do we have?
Yvette(caller): Yvette.
Dr.SHIVA: Yvette, Hey, can you lower your volume? And I’ll bring you right in. Okay, on the back. Thanks.
What ended up happening was in the Vietnam War, the counterculture group essentially dominated for many years. Right? They would go to the Mall on Washington and you know, get wasted or just do dumb things. And they thought that was scamming the system. How did the Vietnam War actually end, how did we actually stop this ridiculous war?
It was when on the floor of the Democratic Convention, up until that point, the Republicans were seen as the Party of War, which they were. But the Democrats were seen as a Party of Peace. But Lyndon Johnson, in 1968, literally had machine guns on the floor of the Democratic Convention. Because outside there were huge protests. And the cops were unleashed to beat the hell out of these kids.
And that’s when Working People saw this on TV – rose up. And you started having boycotts and strikes. When the Labor Movement got involved and it went Beyond Left and Right when people said, wait a minute, it is working people, poor blacks and poor whites who are going to fight for the Elites. And when that movement came up, the War literally stopped within 12 months…16 months.
It was when the power of the Working-Class Force organized, we ended that. So the same thing right now we see massive exploitation taking place of working people. The reactionary forces, the people who think they’re being goof-offs, they think that that’s what they’re doing. Like they’re the fighters, but they’re no different than those counterculture people. And that’s what’s, because there is real exploitation, right. So let me take this. Go ahead. Where are you from? Are you from Los Angeles?
Yvette(caller):Yes. Okay.
Dr.SHIVA: Who are you and tell us what your thoughts are?
Yvette(caller): Well, my thoughts are multi… I feel like society at this point, I’m working around a diverse group of people, and I think social media and also, unfortunately, Reality TV has really made people “Entitled” to do basically nothing to get something. And it’s really, it’s, it’s a disease.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, let me just make one comment. Before I go to this. Someone wrote, “Patrick Byrne locals wrote a 50K check that was cashed with instructions.” So some of you may know that I was involved in the Election Integrity Movement, and I saw a lack of integrity of bogus people doing bogus work. And a guy called Patrick Byrne attempted to send me $50,000 for my work. And I saw that he was trying to scam me and use me.
And someone said, you know, “you wrote a check that was cashed with instructions. We know the truth.” Some guy Jeff S who’s an ignorant fool. Here’s the actual copy, Jack, Jeff. I returned the check back to this, back to Patrick Byrne. Okay, I don’t take any money for that, I don’t work on it for people who are unethical. So, there you go. Okay. So, you need to shut the fuck up. All right.
Yvette(caller): Yep, Agreed.
Dr.SHIVA: All right. So, the work I’ve always done has always been ethical, because how I was brought up to what you said, what Kristin said earlier. But there are a lot of very wealthy people out there throwing money out there thinking they can buy people like me. And that happened in the Election Integrity Movement. And so just to be clear, I returned back, 99% of the people, I returned back the check for $50,000. Luckily, I have this right here. So, we can shut up morons like this. But anyway, continue. You were saying – so sorry about that.
Yvette(caller): No, that’s okay. Yeah, I’ve worked around the lazy asses that want to pass the buck off because they don’t want to learn and aren’t interested in picking up the slack. They know someone else will or there’s a boss that is always one that always slips on through in every situation, the one that likes, gets on by for a variety of different reasons. There’s always one. And I think it’s, I don’t know, it’s a complicated conversation, because the hard-working people are just, it’s ingrained in you.
It’s, but it’s not like it’s not like that anymore. It’s not ingrained. I can tell you I’ve numerous people that have children, that they’re just entitled and it’s, You blame the parents? And you blame a lot of it says, also, I live in this crazy town here. I mean, I don’t know. I know there’s some good parents, but most of it is the system.
They always want to let someone always slips through. Someone’s always picking up the slack for someone that is not even interested again, like I said, in learning or caring about the job. But I just want to like come in. Not even sweep. And like you come in here like the store is a mess, something’s a mess like what do you do all day?
Dr.SHIVA: So, I think Tonya wants it. Tonya, did you want to comment that you have something.
Tonya: They come in to punch a clock, they come in and punch the clock? Do their eight hours, hide as much as they can, you know, watch porn in the back. Extra-long breaks, extra-long lunches. Yeah, there’s a lot of just laziness. And I think it does have a lot to do with work ethic and not being taught, you know. If I did a chore, something wrong when I was young, I had to redo it.
And I was taught very early to take pride in what you do. If you pull weeds, pull them right. You know, if you’re washing a car and wash it right, don’t leave a big dirty streak on it. Whatever it is, you do your best. Because you know, somebody’s gonna come behind you and see what you did. And do you want them to think that you just did you know, a half assed job as my, my family says, half-assed?
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, I think both you guys are bringing up this very important point. I’ve seen comments, Jill Jones is putting something up there. The bottom line is, ultimately, I think if you just look at work very deeply and philosophically, when a human being is connected to their labor, and they do great work, it actually thrives, it actually supports their spirit in a very profound way.
Because ultimately, we have a finite life on this planet. What are you known for, what you created, right? What did you leave behind it? It’s literally labor. The labor you do is a reflection of you. So, I think most people actually want to do work that’s meaningful. They want to do it with excellence, etc. And one could argue that over time. Hold on, I’m going to just take another call, but thanks for your input.
Yvette(caller): Okay. Perfect
Dr.SHIVA: Los Angeles. Yep.
Dr.SHIVA: Hi. We have someone from Maryland calling. Who are you? Hi, Who do we have? Hello?
Bob(caller): Dr.SHIVA?
Dr.SHIVA: Yes. Hi, who are you?
Bob(caller): Hi, I’m Bob from Hanover, Pennsylvania.
Dr.SHIVA: Hey, Bob, go ahead. Share your thoughts.
Bob(caller): I got a question I want to throw to you. Earlier, you were saying about the technology that’s replacing everybody on their jobs? I mean, that’s something that’s really happening is not?
Dr.SHIVA: Right.
Bob(caller): Now, I’ve been, you know, a community activist. I ran for city council in Baltimore City in 1991. And I’ve been telling people for years, our jobs are being replaced at every level, and ain’t nobody’s job is safe these days on account of the technology that is being produced.
Unfortunately, we work for a country that only has the Capitalist System where you have to work and buy the products that are being built. The other thing is that there’s people that’s working that can’t afford to buy the products that they’re making themselves. What were your thoughts on that about? You know, us being replaced by robots and technology?
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, so you’re asking a very deep question. And I have an answer for that. Before I want to make sure we have participation. Does anyone else want to take a whack at that, but I’ll give you my thoughts on it. Jason Long? Frank, Heather, Tonya?
Tonya: Build a Movement.
Dr.SHIVA: Build a Movement. Yep. Well, so this is better. What’s your first name? For Maryland? Yeah Bob. So, Bob. So, you use the word Capitalism. So, what’s happened is Americans have been trained over the last 80-90 years to and this has been done by the Educational System, not to really be able to have a discourse about Capitalism, right?
What that really means, and everything is just branded as, Oh, if you say Working People Unite, you’re a Communist or Marxist, Shut the hell up right, by one Wing of the Establishment. And the other Wing has taken advantage of the actual exploitation of workers to further exploit them by misleading them.
But if you look at the actual Economic Systems, one way to think about these Economic Systems is actually like, think about an Economic System no different than a Child or Human Being which goes through various stages, right? It initially starts off, Bob, at a child stage and it goes through an adolescent stage, right? Then it grows up and becomes a young adult then an adult. And you know, it gets sick and eventually passes on, right?
Bob(caller): Yes.
Dr.SHIVA: Capitalism must be viewed as a system that’s not a stationary system. And this should be taught and it never it’s taught. It had, you know, when Capitalism came about, you know, in the 1800s, or late 1700s, it was a very vibrant system. It was a powerful force, a progressive force, against Feudalism, right, the concept of a King saying that they were connected to God, and we were all Serfs.
We lived in little villages, right? And we had a little plot of land. 60% or 30%, went to the King and the King protected us. That was called Serfdom, Feudalism. Feudalism went through its stages. Well, when capitalism really came, you didn’t no longer had to be on your farm, you could move around. You could go from country to country sometimes, right?
Capitalism was this very powerful force, a very powerful force for positive change. It built roads and highways, it unleashed innovation and people-built airplanes. I mean, all this stuff came from this very vibrant capitalism, right? So, you can think about that as the real where Capitalism went from being a teenager to being this very powerful, vibrant, dynamic adult. But the nature of Capitalism, by its nature, is not to meet the needs of people. That’s not what it’s driven by, it’s driven by the want to maximize PROFIT, right? That’s the foundation. What’s that?
Yeah, it’s Yeah, but it’s, it’s driven by, by its nature by its System, just like the Feudal System was defined by amassing as much property as you want. A King had a little piece of land, and he looked over, he goes, I’m gonna go kill that King. I’m gonna get his land. It was about amassing property. So eventually you have the British Empire. And then they were fighting so many wars, they were fighting, they were trying to oppress the United States, and they were trying to own India. They couldn’t fight on too many battle fronts, and they collapsed, right? So that was the nature of Feudalism. Well, Capitalism, ultimately, it’s based on maximizing PROFIT.
Let’s say all of us are Capitalists here, and we’re all running, oh I don’t know a Tire Company. We make tires. Jason’s making tires, Jason Long’s making tires, Frank, Bob, you’re making tires. Well in the early stages, we’re all in different, maybe parts of the world and people love it. We’re helping tires, tires now helping people move around. But at a certain point, Heather says, well, I’m in Oregon, Jason’s in Maine, I’m going to create a Tire Company in Maine and compete with him. So, Heather does that now she owns a tire business in Oregon, or maybe all over the northern part of the US. And how does she beat Jason?
She has to do one thing. She has to compete with him, which means lower wages, reduce expenses, because it’s about maximizing profits. So, she starts making either cheaper tires or better advertising and lowers wages. Jason goes out of business. Now Heather is controlling all of the Northern US and Frank is, let’s say, and Jason is in the southern part of the US.
While Heather does a deal with Frank, you know, some deal maybe gives him some cheaper rubber. Frank is used to destroying Jason’s business. So now you have Heather owns the northern part, Frank owns the southern. So, you have two big monopolies in the US. And let’s say Tonya, and you decide you are going to own Asia.
Tonya owns Europe, right? So, if you got these out of seven or eight tire companies, you’ll end up having three or four. And they’ve gotten there through reducing labor value, right? Cutting costs, right? And in a positive way, by potentially bringing in, like you said, robotics and new equipment and new infrastructure.
They invest in infrastructure. But what ends up happening, what’s fascinating about as Capitalism advances, is that it actually starts producing in these different cycles, more goods than can be sold. So, what ends up happening is Heather, and Frank gets so good at producing goods because they bring in automation or you in Asia, let’s say Bob your running Asia, you guys start bringing automation. So now with less people, you can actually produce more goods. So, you’ve laid off all these people. And you actually have overproduction. This is what people don’t understand.
We don’t have a supply chain problem right now. If you actually look, it’s all bullshit. There’s actually overproduction. So, there’s a lot of stuff and what happens when you have a lot of stuff, but you’ve laid off all these people, they can’t buy the stuff that you produced.
You have unemployment occurring at the same time when there’s huge supply, but there’s reduced demand. And so, capitalism will go through these little cycles and these big cycles. October 29, 1929, was a big cycle where there was actually, if you look at it, there was overproduction. But the Working-Class People have been put out of work, and couldn’t buy those things.
So, you had, you had no, so that’s the cycle that we’re going through. So, what capitalism did in 1929, when it failed, you want let’s be specific Imperialism, which is the highest stage of capitalism, what do they do? Remember, capitalism was never supposed to be the government involved. It’s supposed to be Bottoms-up, right? Market forces. But it didn’t work that way.
The Imperialists woke up and they said, shit, we need government help. So then, Keynes, John, Keynesian Economics comes in. They say, Oh, yeah, yes, you can have a little bit of government intervention. So, the government intervenes, saves capitalism. But what did it actually do? It created a collusion between government and monopolies.
They were able to sort of prop up Imperialism for a few decades, which is where we’re at right now. The model now is they know it’s still failing again. We actually have overproduction where productivity since 1970 has gone up by 77%. We actually are a much more productive world. But wages haven’t gone up.
Bob(caller): No, I understand that concept. Because you’re what you’re saying, because if you go on Google Earth, you look around, they got these fields of cars and trucks that’s built. Nobody’s buying them all over the, (Right) I’m sure they’re all over the globe like that there. And they’re just being made and not being bought by anybody. And they were producing countries.
Dr.SHIVA: They created the supply chain nonsense. Because what is happening now the Imperialists. the government, and the monopolies are saying, you know, this stuff is going to crash and burn. We need to come up with ways to manipulate the public. So, using the media, they create inflation, they create supply chain problems, there’s actually overproduction right now. What has happened as a result of that is the Imperialists or the Elites, what they’re trying to do is like something that’s going to fall, it’s a deck of cards, so they keep propping it up.
Their latest prop up was to just print money. They just printed, Trump printed $6.9 Trillion, Obama printed $4.3 Trillion in one term. And all of that money that got printed, didn’t go out to build infrastructure, which is what they claim Modern Monetary Theory was. It literally went to banks, and the banks just put it into the Stock Market. It didn’t go anywhere. So, the rich got much richer, and all of Working People’s wages stayed flat.
When we talk about the work and the worker, you’re bringing up. I’m glad you brought this up, Bob. What’s really happening is work is being demeaned. We don’t value “Work”. So, the things that we’re seeing in the workplace like Frank, you said, goof-off, you can’t hire apprentices. These people haven’t had time as we’re doing in this discussion to step back and say, “What the hell is actually going on?” (Absolutely) So they just decide, I’m just going to react, like, you know, in the 60s, I’m going to smoke drugs.
That’s my way, I’m going to fight the man. I’m just going to, I’m just not going to work. But that’s not revolutionary. It’s actually becoming part of the problem. But Bob, I, that’s why, you know, our Movement exists, because we realize we need to educate people on history. We need to educate people on how Systems work.
Bob(caller): Well, that’s the same way with our, with our money supply in this country. We know that Banks don’t lend their own money in their Banks. And they take or make up this fake money that they’re printing now. A lot of people don’t understand the connection here, like the Federal Reserve, don’t have nothing to do for our federal government. It’s private, or private bankers and all that controls the money supply. I don’t know if you ever seen the story with about money was, I mean, how the Federal Reserve came into existence?
Dr.SHIVA: I have. I’ve seen that. Yeah. The Federal Reserve is a private, semi-private, private organization. It has a nice name. It’s all marketing.
Bob(caller): Yes. That’s the other thing that a lot of people make next in this country is it’s all put up front like everything else is. And you know, we’re in $33 trillion debt, something’s gonna have to happen that the system is going to fall for at some point or another because you can’t pay this money back or they don’t want to pay it.
Dr.SHIVA: Well, Bob, the latest saying, is a woman called Stephanie Keating, she’s a professor out of Wharton. She’s saying, “Oh, it’s okay to print as much money as you want.” This is the Modern Monetary Theory. So that’s what they did. There’s actually a theory because their definition of money is not connected to labor. Let me repeat that again. Their definition of Money is NOT connected to Labor.
That’s the world we’re living in. The Real power of Money, it always was when money is connected even better than gold, when Money is connected to Labor Power, like Frank, you’re working an honest day. And you delivered Actual Value, or Jason, you did welding, or Jason Long you’re cooking and making a meal for somebody or delivering an Actual Service. And you actually get the Value of that, that was, that’s the True Value of Money.
But when the Elites have decoupled Money from the actual value of Labor. Money just lives in its own world somewhere. And so, they’re just saying, “Oh, you just print money”, because they believe Money has nothing to do with Labor. And that’s why we’re seeing, so the bottom line is the reason we are seeing goof-offs, the reason we’re seeing people scam the system, it’s going to happen more and more and more, mark my words, is because the Elites have literally destroyed the “Value of Money.” But thank you, Bob, I’m going to take someone else is call in. And thank you.
Bob(caller):Thank you. And good night, guys.
Dr.SHIVA: Hold on one second. Who are we speaking to? Hello, from Concord Mass. Hello. Hi, who is this?
Rebecca(caller): This is Rebecca.
Dr.SHIVA: Hi, Rebecca. Can you hold on one second?
Rebecca(caller): Of course. Yeah.
Dr.SHIVA: Before we bring in Rebecca, I just want to let everyone know we’re having a very good discussion. It’s 830. We’ve been here for about an hour. I just want to go to our panel, Rebecca now. But every Thursdays at 11am EST, at 8pm EST every Thursdays we do an Orientation for our Movement. Everyone on the call here are people who are students in our Movement.
They’re activists in our Movement. And our movement is really about educating people how we need to take a Systems Approach to Building a Movement. And without that, people are going to do stupid things, thinking like they’re fighting the man. But it’s ultimately, we need to build a Bottoms-up Movement. It really has to be based on Education. Go ahead, Rebecca.
Rebecca(caller): I work for a large retailer, but it is a small location. And I think the key to making your people valued in their position is support. And, you know, continued, you know, whether they sweep the floor well, tell them they did it well. Whether they, you know, clean the bathrooms well tell them they did it well.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, I think I Yeah. And I think you’re what you’re bringing up is that it goes back to the central point, right, when you don’t value work. Even Management doesn’t even praise people for doing good work. Right? No, oops, we can’t hear you, Rebecca, we’re losing you.
Rebecca(caller): You can’t make people, you have to make people valued for their daily work, and they’ll come back, and they’ll do it better. And they’ll receive your, your response and your whatever you want to do with them. And you know, better, I think.
Dr.SHIVA: Yep. Very good observation. Thank you.
Rebecca(caller): Okay, thank you.
Dr.SHIVA: Jason, someone asked you a question. What was Jason saying about his old landscaping business, by the way? Go ahead, Jason.
Jason V: What was I saying about that? That was a while ago, I think I was talking about just getting people who, you know, because I would, I had like a three-man crew on big jobs, I was by myself on other jobs, and I’d have one helper. But to have a good helper was important. You know, you didn’t want somebody who, you know, was just screwing the pooch all day. And it was very important.
But on the same token is that, you know, we understand that, you know, some workers are being screwed, you know, by the, by the elite. So, we’re not saying that’s not going on. But the big thing is, what do you do about it? You know, and basically, I’ve made a deal with this company down the street to show up and do a good job. And there’s value in that, you know, and that’s why we need a good Bottoms-up Movement, like we had years and years ago when they got all the advances that they did get. So, you know,
Dr.SHIVA: Jason, talk a little bit about that. Maybe you can educate people what occurred in that Bottoms-up Movement.
Jason V: Yes, people, you know, take the course and join us because I’ve learned so much over the past two and a half years. One suggestion that Dr.SHIVA has been making and he’s been making for over two years is read Karl Marx, you know, so I’ve actually read those books now.
And he’s written more than one book. And, you know, so the one is very different than the Communist Manifesto, you know. The Bottoms-up Labor Movement, it started in the 1800s. It was mostly women who started it because they came off the farms, and they were the first ones to work in the factory. And they basically demanded better working conditions, they demanded better wages.
And that’s something that we still need today is especially better wages. Because, you know, like you were saying, whether it’s the baby formula, or Big Pharma, there’s usually two or three big companies, big, humongous conglomerates. And even in the company I’m working for now, they just bought out Cormart, which Cormart bought out Pine State.
So, I mean, it’s basically a warehouse for every convenience store, everything you see in the convenience stores, from the wood on the sidewalk, to everything inside, the water and everything, you know, candy. But there, there’s no more Mom and Pop of those. It used to be Mom and Pop little, you know, people there, it’s all consolidated, you know, and it’s all these huge people, you know, making all the money and stuff.
And so, the people who do the actual work should probably be making more money, at least enough to, you know, afford an apartment. You see stuff going on now where Working People are becoming homeless. And you know, that’s no good. We can’t have that. So.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, so Jason, one of the things I want to, I just brought up here, can you see this, Jason?
Jason V: Yes.
Dr.SHIVA: Can you see the screen here that I just brought that?
Jason V: Yes, I can.
Dr.SHIVA: Let me see if it’s still there? Yeah. Yeah. So, what this is a very interesting graph. And it’s to Jason’s point. If you look at this screen here, it’s fascinating. So, you see during this period of 1940, can everyone see this during this period of 19?
During this period of 1940 to 1973, what do you see here, Jason, you see both of these lines, parallel right to each other? And what are his two lines? Well, one line is productivity. So, in the United States, productivity increased dramatically, because everyone is out there working. We’re all sharing the American Pie. And the other line is hourly compensation. So, productivity went up 96%, and compensation went up.
Now guess what was occurring during this period. To your point, Jason, all those workers movements, we had very, very solid Working People Working Ethically, Working Strong. And Working People United. They weren’t scamming the system. They weren’t not showing up to work and playing video games or whatever, or you know, smoking weed or whatever, you know, during work.
They actually were organized labor. Serious Working-Class Movements. And during this period, there were close to 11 million strikes. And, sorry, 11,000 strikes, 50 to 100 million workers participated, and they kept the Elites in check. So as the economy grew, so did people’s wages. Can everyone see that?
But then in 1970 what happened is the Unions were destroyed by the Left and the Right. The Right-Wing, called the Unions, Bottoms-up Unions– Marxist-Communists– Socialists, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And then the Left Wing took over the Union’s Top-down and they stopped any strikes. During this period there were only about 900 strikes. So let me repeat, 900 strikes during this period, 11,000 strikes during this period. And look what happens. Productivity continues to increase, which means people were being exploited, their labor was being exploited, more machinery came in. Productivity went up by 74%, which means GDP grew, but people’s hourly compensation only grew by 9.2%.
This difference was around $47 trillion. Working People wages, I’m talking about not Lumpenproletariat; $47 trillion was given to the Elites like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. This is a very, very powerful graph. And this pretty much says it. Working People Uniting, Working People doing great work, fighting together. Real Work. And over here, we started having Working People fighting against each other, the Left and the Right took place. And guess what happened, we stopped working together. Work, we’re in this period right now where work has been diminished.
And so, we have this major problem with Working People getting screwed even more, because their Labor is no longer being Valued. And the Lumpenproletariat are contributing to this by not valuing labor. Thanks, Jason. So, you, you really brought up this point, which we bring up in our Movement. And this is why I’m going to just put the, I’m going to end with, I’m going to let everyone know, everyone should become a Truth Freedom Health® Warrior. If you’re serious about fighting, if you’re a Working-Class person, and you get this, you need to become a Truth Freedom Health® Warrior-Scholar, you need to understand these, otherwise, you’re going to be victimized by these people who want to do NO Work. And you’re going to think, Oh, I’m gonna go to work and scam the system today. It’s really not gonna get you anywhere. We need to build a Bottoms-up Movement. So let me just play this video. And then we’ll come back with some observations from our panel, and then we’ll close. So I just want to play our video, which will give a perspective on this.
Dr.SHIVA: All right, so let’s end the day with, if we can go around to each one of you. And if you guys can each tell us in summary, based on this discussion that we’ve had, to start with you, Frank, What is Work And What is a Worker? What is Work? What is Real Work? And what’s the Real worker? Go ahead, Frank?
Frank: Well, I think the what’s the overall picture that I got out of this whole thing is work ethic. And every day, you should do whatever task you do, but be able to hang your hat on it and have some pride. Otherwise, you’re just going through the motions. I guess the answer would be, that’s actual work is when you no matter what you do, whether it’s big or small, if you take pride in it, and you want to do, and you strive to do your best, then then that’s actual work. Otherwise, you’re just, you’re just going along and going through the motions.
Dr.SHIVA: Great. What about you, Jason? What is Work? Jason Long, What is Work and What is the Worker?
Jason L: I believe our Work is, you know, like, Frank was saying about working really hard and applying what you know and doing the best with what you can. And that part of, you know, working is extremely important to me personally as if you just look at some of the Systems that we have around in the world, the Healthcare System, I would say even Transportation System, really, they’re all pretty much a failure.
They’re all not successful. And that’s the reason that the world is the way it is today. If we can work on ourselves, and first step is joining Truth Freedom Health®, you know, work on our own work ethic, you know, and apply really greatness there. I would say to anyone, you’d be really amazed to see what happens around you. As I can just say, for myself, personally, joining six months ago, I’ve applied systems my whole life, but just in the last six months, I’ve applied some of these concepts to different areas of my life where I wouldn’t normally use them.
And there has been drastic change and great change, if that makes any sense. I’ve seen these phase transitions in my own life that quickly. So, I do believe, you know, we do continue working hard and doing what’s right that this change will happen across the world.
Dr.SHIVA: Thanks, Jason. Jason, you’re talking about work in terms of building the movement for Truth Freedom Health®, because it creates provides an infrastructure, that’s what you’re referring to, right?
Jason L: Oh, yes. And again, it starts with me first working hard and well. And then that will actually, you know, I’m not saying it, but it will, it will go to everything outside of me if that makes sense, anything around me, which would be my job, and then maybe the Food System and, and so on, and maybe a union after that, and people actually changing some of these narratives, which will actually give us a little more money in our pocket.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, Jason, I mean, in our, when we have our Meetings or Orientation, we talked about this movement is ultimately about the individual. It’s about the individual, valuing themselves, having self-respect, and then learning these components to help them. That’s excellent. Jason. Jill Jones says, “Great word, Jason Long, self-development. Frank, you’re right, we must have honor.” Let’s go over to Heather Heather, so what’s your definition of the Work and the Worker that emerges from this?
Heather: Well, in addition to what Frank and Jason said, I mean, it just really working to hone your craft, whether you’re creating a product or you have a skill that you’re sharing, working very hard, giving a great effort and with integrity to work effectively and efficiently and provide that good or service to your client. But yeah, it does need to come from within. And that is something that is instilled by parents and families.
And the Truth Freedom Health® Movement instills that as well as a very, very integral component and in knowing that we need to look within, to just really dig deep to produce and to connect with others, to connect with others in our local communities. And in our national community, global community, our Truth Freedom Health® Community. These are hard-working people of integrity.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah, Heather. LibberT said, “Work for to strive for excellence, and not necessarily perfection.” I think, you know, our movement, Truth Freedom Health®, we first honor Working People. We’re having this discussion on What is Work and Working People that reflects our commitment to that. But it’s really very, very important as a part of a movement, to emphasize the Commitment to Excellence.
We are our movement, those of you, if our website doesn’t work, we hold meetings every morning at 9am. You know, we have sometimes these meetings on for two hours, but every day we have these meetings, and most of our people are Volunteers. And people work together to build this movement, so our Infrastructure works for you, all these, the educational model, all these things work for you.
And we’re very, very excited. So, we want all of you people to recognize that this is a Bottoms-up movement by Working People. It’s not the Kennedys, running a non-profit, it’s not AOC, it’s not Bernie Sanders, it’s not Donald Trump. It’s this is a Bottoms-up Movement. Nothing like this exists in the world, Tonya, so why don’t you share your thoughts on What is Work and What’s a Worker? And we’ll finish up with Jason.
Tonya: What is work? Well, if you enjoy what you do, you really don’t work. So, if you’re lucky enough to find a career, a job, like some of my family and friends have, they love what they do. So, it’s not really work for them. They get paid to do what they enjoy doing. And really, with as many different fields as there are in the world, you should be able to find something that you enjoy doing.
And when you really enjoy doing it, you’ll spend more time on it, you give it your all, you put your heart and soul into it. Whether you’re a woodworker or a floral designer, or a realtor, or any kind of designer or entrepreneur or working for someone. If you enjoy what you’re doing, and if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, go do something else, because you’re just wasting time.
You know, we have a limited amount of time on this planet. And it’s fun to work. It really is fun to work, it’s fun to earn a living, it’s fun to see how much money you can make or know how high you can raise or get raises. And I don’t know, like Heather said, I don’t know if kids are being taught that it can be a lot of fun to work. And it gives you a sense of pride. Job well done, you know, bonuses, etc. Vacations.
Dr.SHIVA: Someone just said show me right. You said this is Shabbat “No work”. Yeah, there’s also a time to not work and relax. But surely, but it surely isn’t when you’re at work when you’re supposed to work.” Let’s finish up with Jason. Thanks, Tonya. Jason, what’s your definition of Work and Worker?
Jason V: Work to me is somebody who obviously goes in, and you know, is making money. It’s also someone who values other Workers. You know, who takes pride in their Work, like others have said and really values other people who are doing the same thing, and cares about doing a good job. And real quick before we finish up, I also want to say, you know, that includes retirees, for people who are thinking about joining us, you know, you’ve worked your whole life.
If you’re not working now, you’re still a Worker. And also, single mothers are always included in our definition of Worker. That’s a very important job. Some people might say the most important job. So, you know, if you’re a single mother or not even a single mother, just a mother who’s staying at home with your kid, and you’re lucky enough to be able to do that while your husband works for a few years. God bless you. And yeah, that’s about it for me.
Dr.SHIVA: Some of you guys may, may have seen the study several years ago, they found these people who are manic depressive, and they’re on drugs. And so, a guy took them out to a farm, they got up at 4am and they worked hard physical labor. And in 90 days, all of these people’s symptoms went away. There’s something to physical working and working and as you said, Tonya committing to labor. The other thing, Jason, I think in closing, I think one of the biggest take aways that comes out of this discussion what you said is, Jason is Working People also supporting other Working People. This is very, very important. It’s a very profound statement what you may Jason, Working People supporting other Working People.
And that’s why our Movement exists. The slogan of our Movement is Workers Unite Beyond Left and Right for Truth Freedom Health®, but it’s Working People Unite. So those of you who are young people, if you happen to come across this video, and you’re thinking, well, all this stuff is going on. And the legitimate thing is there is this reality going on with this graph, right? This is reality, you can’t get away from this.
And if you are observant of this graph, like we said, here productivity is increasing, .11% are profiting from the productivity, the rest of us are not. And this gap here is $47 trillion in wages that have been transferred from Working People to the Elites. And if you understand this, to Jason’s point and our Movement’s point is: Do you now just stop Working? That’s one model.
You get more, so you basically go to work, but for eight hours, you’re on TV. So, you’re saying I’m going to increase my hourly compensation. And so, working for eight hours, I’m only going to work one that way increases my compensation? Or do you build a Movement? That is what’s before us. Part of Working and being a Worker, is to build the Movement. Because we have to have Working People Unite, otherwise, the nature of Work is going to be completely diminished, we’re not going to Value Work at all.
And what happens is that we’re not going to have any infrastructure, we’re not going to have any proper food, you’re not going to have all these things, because you’re gonna have less and less people valuing work. And the Elites will use that opportunity to essentially robotize everything you know, and essentially come to the conclusion that the only workers you’re going to keep are the Workers who are just going to be robots, blind robots, you see?
We’re in a very, very important situation. And that’s why this graph pretty much says it all. During this period of American History, Working People like us, we united, we built movements, we fought. And as the Apple Pie grew for everyone, everyone’s wages went up. And during this period Working People stopped uniting. That’s what this graph really shows that during this period, until now, Working People are not uniting together to build a Movement.
This is why $47 trillion, during this period 11,000 strikes, in a good way, people were on the streets fighting for their own self-respect and dignity. During this period, only 900 strikes. And the Bernie Sanders and the AOCs and the Donald Trump’s, and the Left-Wing and the Right-Wing all colluded to print money to destroy the Value of Labor.
What mattered was what suits you wore, you know, what hairstyle you had, whether you’re watching the Kardashians. During this period, Working People’s work ethic has actually been destroyed by the fact that Working People no longer have any way to organize and build Movements.
So that’s really the profound outcome of our discussion today. And I hope everyone got it but, as but to everyone listening, this is the Movement for Truth Freedom Health®. There’s no other Movement like it out there, you will not find on a Friday evening at 9pm, six working people getting together or seven, Bob just left us having this discussion. We are committed to building a Movement Bottoms-up.
And those of you who want to know more, I recommend you go to VASHIVA.com/JOIN and you sign up for the program, Foundations of Systems, and we invite everyone to come to recognize why we need to build a Movement for Freedom and why we need to build a Movement for Truth and why we need to build a Movement for Health, that all of these are connected. And we invite everyone to come to our Orientation just RSVP.
We had a phenomenal group yesterday. We have people all over the world coming into that group. If you remember, we had a guy from a Worker from Samoa and a small island who had been under lockdown and house arrest. We had a woman who’s a 70-year-old bodybuilder from California who talked about the trials that she went through.
But we had Working People from all over the world, New Zealand, etc. But this is the only Movement that’s really having a serious discussion about how we go Beyond Left and Right. But thank you, Frank, for joining us. Thanks, Jason. Jason Long, Tonya and Heather. Any final closing comments from any one of you? Anything? Frank, did you want to say something?
Frank: Thank you. No, thank you for doing this. Thank you for hosting us.
Dr.SHIVA: Yeah. Anyway, we look forward to seeing everyone. In the weeks to come we’ll be doing more of these conversations, and we’ll be looking forward to having more participation. Thank you, everyone. Be well, have a good night you guys.
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