Today is Labor Day. The holiday exists for a reason. Do not pretend it does not.
Men and women who clock in have been cheated. Hours that never ended. Machines that took fingers. Company towns that cut the wage and left the rent. Some of those fights were legitimate. A fair-minded person can say that without joining the cartoon.
The cartoon is the rest of the story. The cartoon says labor is the whole of production. The hands are IT. Nobody else. Not the person who had the idea. Not the person who signed the note and stood to lose the shop if the idea was wrong. Not the person who stayed awake when the market said no.
That is not history. That is a head count.
Labor has the numbers. Politics counts heads. So the civic calendar gives the many a Monday and calls it justice. The few who originate and risk get no equivalent day. Not because they did not build anything. Because there are fewer of them. The skew is not an accident. It is the point.
No labor exists to labor on until someone first says: this. Then someone bets money, name, and years on it. If it fails, the founder eats the loss. The payroll goes looking. That is the other scorecard. Profit if it works. Bankruptcy if it does not. One side gets the parade. The other side gets the residual.
Balance is the same problem we already named. Not total free market. Not total control. A floor that keeps the cracks from becoming graves, and a system that still lets the idea come first. Steal the idea and you have hands with nothing to make. Steal the hands and you have a blueprint that never leaves the desk.
A fair-minded person can honor the work and still refuse the sermon. Workers matter. Founders matter. The holiday flatters one and erases the other on purpose.
Accountability. Assimilation. Allegiance.
Practiced permanently, prudently, pragmatically.
LIVE GRATEFUL 🇺🇸
(It starts in The Spine NOT on your Knees.)
– A Grateful Immigrant
Grateful Immigrant 