Unskilled labor¶

"Unskilled labor" is not a myth. It's a deliberate effort by capital to deskill the individual tasks involved in production in order to:

• Further alienate workers from the fruits of their labor
• Degrade the bargaining power of workers
• Increase opportunities for expansion The spirit of the slogan "unskilled labor is a myth" is that labor is indispensable to production, and that therefore workers should be treated with respect. The first part is true. The second part is an appeal to the empathy of capitalists, which is misplaced. They have none. It doesn't matter how "impressive" a given worker is at accomplishing their task. It doesn't matter how obvious it is to us that we all play a vital role in the making of our world. From the perspective of capital, labor is something from which to extract value. Nothing more. The sooner we stop expecting our class enemies to care about such petty things as "dignity," the sooner we can start taking it back.