We, the labourers
I just wanted to take the time out of this day of well-deserved rest to recognize my fellow labourers. For those who might wonder if they are a labourer or not, in the context of labour economics, you are a labourer if you are exchanging work for a wage paid by a demanding firm. Because us labourers exist as parts of a social, institutional, or political system, labour economics must also account for social, cultural and political variables. It is from these variables that I must conclude that one earning an income from their own labour is the most honourable and ethical way of earning an income, and we should be proud of that.
Being a labourer is the least exploitable way to make money. That is, you are likely not benefiting from someone else being exploited to earn your income. Now, some of those in management may have subordinates under them, but generally, depending on your management style, you are toiling for your employers just like your subordinates are. You too are being exploited since you do not actually own the means of production and have little-to-no say in how profits are spent.
To be a labourer is to use one's physical and/or mental capacities, whether you are born with these abilities, built them up through self-determination and external resources, or a combination of both, to create a product or service that another person can benefit from. We, the labourers, are the sole creators of value since it was literally created by us.
This is in opposition to being gatekeepers of property or of a commodity, the so called creators of wealth. A more accurate term would be hoarders of wealth, considering achieving such a position is most often achieved by those who already have access to wealth, and is based on both their ability and desire to exploit that wealth, even if it means stepping on others in the process.
These same gatekeepers in our monopolistic economy (monopolies being an inevitability and function of capitalism) are able to take advantage of their position as holders of more wealth than the majority of people can ever dream of, to game the system, and keep more of the value (profits) that us labourers have created in their employment. This is possible because in a capitalist system, there is always a steady pool of desperate people willing to do anything in order to pay the bills, hence suppressing wages all the way up the proverbial ladder.
This of course depends on the type of job it is, and some of us labourers, myself included, are more privileged than others. But things can and will change. The mass retirements and job shuffling, as well as the large number of deaths that occurred during the COVID pandemic, which resulted in wages increasing faster than they have in decades (despite still being lower than inflation), was an anomaly. This won't last forever, and rising interest rates by central banks are indeed designed to cause a recession and reverse these gains. Also, someone like me who works in the tech industry cannot count on it growing at the pace it has been forever. It is because of this precarity and the functions of capitalism that we all need to stick together.
Some of us might be lucky enough to avoid the economic pain that is coming. The reality is, and history has shown, however, that most of us will be dragged down and our wages will continue to lag rising cost of living and inflation. This is why there hasn't been more important time to have class solidarity. We must refuse to step on each other in order to climb that ladder. We must hold out our hands and lift each other up onto that ladder, to stand side-by-side in the pursuit of fair compensation for our labour. Or if the bosses kick us down, we must be willing to tear down that ladder.
Most of all, we must always remember who the real creators of value are. We must always remember that the owners and bosses need us more than we need them. This has always been the case since capitalism began, and will be the case in the post-capitalist world, which may come sooner than we think. The world can go on without hoarders of wealth. What it can't go on without is us, the labourers.