I started killing ants last week. Well, I don´t really know if they are dead but I can´t imagine being catapulted en masse into the depths of a hoover bag is particularly healthy for them. But then darkness is where the intrepid ants build their nest, where the queen lays her thousands of eggs, hatching more slaves to scour my kitchen in search of food. And maybe that´s the fear I have, that they´ll never cease their remorseless marching or multiplying. They´re harmless but they get everywhere so I hoover everywhere, the oven, the fridge, the cutlery drawer and sometimes more than ants. While extracting a spoon from the hose the other day I came to the conclusion that humans are not unlike ants and unemployment is like a giant hoover.
Work is not just a means to an end i.e. to earn money it also carries the very human value of usefulness. Like the ant ferrying his grain of sugar back to the colony, as workers we feel we are contributing to society, a social togetherness - a team effort. The same collectiveness has seen the Irish taxpayer assume responsibility for the debts of banks that successive governments failed to moderate. We saved them from ruin with our hard-earned cash and we didn´t even get a thank you. In fact, we got half-blamed for the current situation; we borrowed too much, we spent too much, we´re all guilty. Saying the Irish taxpayer contributed to the implosion of the banks in this country is like leaving poison out for the ants and blaming the dog when he eats it and falls down dead!
Over the billions wasted how many bankers have done or will do time in jail? We could fill more than one vacuum bag with all that refuse. Yet, the government punishes us and rewards our money back to the same eejits. Instead of job investment they focus on budget deficits, cut spending in public works and seem somewhat surprised when unemployment starts to rise. And don´t think crushing labour reform is not around the corner. Look at Spain, 23% unemployment, every one in two under 25 without work, and what do the government do to stimulate job growth? They change the law to make it easier for employers to sack their workers. Knowing that unemployment paralyses consumption, it damages the economy and puts more people out of work, you may well ask what are they playing at? Why is the government fanning the flames of another recession, it doesn´t make sense. But, it makes perfect sense.
The reality is that in the global economy the production of goods counts for very little. The earnings achieved from abstract activities such as speculation, betting on shares and bonds, today generates 75 times more profit than all the workers in the world when they get up every morning to plant potatoes, thread sewing machines, mend fishing nets or write a book. The government and the banks borrow the money off the European Central Bank either directly or indirectly, often creating it out of thin air and when flush again, they´re all back in the game. Meanwhile, the Irish taxpayer picks up the tab and pays the interest. As long as the government can convince the Germans we are all stupid enough to keep paying, so the gambling continues. Unfortunately, this game does not need our blood and sweat, it only asks that the laws that permit speculation are left unhindered. Therefore, all that remains for us is to choose calmly between unemployment or the life of a slave with our working rights diminished. We are now worse off than the ants - while we were out slaving all day the neighbouring queen brought ours round a chocolate cake and when we return tired from a hard day´s work we have to sit and watch the two fatties stuffing themselves. Our collected crumbs now seem insignificant and we begin to worry if we are all that important to the queen or our once cohesive colony.
This is the fear and insecurity that hampers a workers response. Wage cuts and reduction of working hours trigger our survival instincts, there is a reluctance to defend workers rights and the employers exploit it. Even so, if all the human beings in the world went on general strike the machinations of money would be able to survive without problem for some time without ever threatening its interests. In times like these we look to our unions to come to the rescue but knowing the above what good would it do us? The solution lies with the political system that got us into this mess in the first place. Speculation can only be regulated via laws drafted by politicians, its credit access controlled by our government. Two years from now, or sooner if we are lucky, those same peaked faces with their familiar shuffle will slither back up our doorsteps to seek our support.
Until then they´ll scuttle back and forth to Germany, receiving their orders. Ruthlessly they´ll fulfill them whipping the backs of the Irish now condemned to the beat of the slave galleys. In the celebrated German employment model seven million workers earn only 400 euros per month. Remember a slave-based society always had full employment and recognise these traders that service this speculative economy are traffickers in misery. They too travel in blackened boats!
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