It’s too low

The Fight For15 movement first made itself known in late 2012.

Of course, it isn’t the first campaign for fair wages and likely won’t be the last.

Labor movements have a rich history in the United States, even if the ruling class would prefer they didn’t.

Those workers pushing for higher wages have been called “lazy” and accused of demanding more and more money for less and less work.

“Fifteen dollars?” they say, “For what, flipping a few burgers?”

Obviously, anyone who’s worked in the fast-food industry (or any other minimum wage job for that matter) knows that’s nonsense.

But, thanks to a number of different factors, what should be widely accepted as fact is eschewed in favor of an air of superiority and cynical dismissal.

These factors are so numerous, it would be impossible to cover entirely here so I’ll focus on one: our warped view of “hard work.”

The uber-rich have ceaselessly attempted to repaint our image of them at the expense of our image of the working class. And, drawing on infinitely deeper resources than the poor, they have been exceedingly successful at this.

This is why the McDonald’s cashier who works 40 hours a week for barely (if that) liveable wages is considered “greedy” for wanting a few more dollars for his or her labor while his or her employer sits in an air-conditioned office somewhere, makes almost $10,000 an hour and is hailed as a “job creator” or an “entrepreneur.”

In a capitalist society, there is—generally speaking—an inverse relationship between the manual labor someone puts in and the pay they receive.

Consequently, there are those who find themselves in very comfortable positions (known as the “haves”) and those who do not (the “have-nots”).

We can find the “haves” insisting that the uber-rich worked diligently for every dollar to their name.

When told to imagine the quintessential American success story, most people imagine a man who got an education, found a career path, and put every fiber of his being toward his goals until, one day, he was at the top, a man who worked hard for what he had and never asked for a penny from anyone else.

This is a feel-good fiction, meant to assure the common people that their toils aren’t so bad because some day they might be the ones in charge!

Assured of their imminent success, the workers keep working, the wheels keep turning, and nothing is changed.

There are factors to this so-called “success story” that no one thinks to inquire after. No one thinks to ask how this man acquired his education.

Did he head out into the world, building a wealth of knowledge from his own experiences?

Or did he enroll in a state-funded university on his parents’ dollar?

Neither does anyone think to ask how the man found his means of wealth. Did he enter the job market as humbly as his future employees?

Or did he drive to a job interview afforded him by happenstance in a car paid for by his parents, wearing a suit they gave him for just such an occasion?

Did he work tirelessly, without question, because he knew that destitution awaited him were he to be dismissed from work?

Or did he work as hard as suited him, knowing that, should he lose his job, his parents would support him until he’s back on his feet?

The self-made man is an illusion, a paean to the rulers written by the rulers.

Everyone relies on others to some extent.

My purpose is not to question the perseverance of the privileged.

The issue is not that the poor man necessarily works harder than the rich man but that the poor man must work hard lest he fall into poverty whereas the rich man is given an abundance of safety nets, reassurances and second chances.

We as a society must stop asking what the poor have done to deserve our table scraps and start asking what the poor have done to deserve only our table scraps.