Weekends, brought to you by Socialists!

[civ_king]

okay, I was listening to NPR today (yah, not the most truthful source )and they were talking about the history of weekends and stuff because Labo(u)r day is coming up and they talked about how people used to work 18 hour days seven days a week and organized labor (whose members got gunned down by police almost regularly) pushed for shorter work days and work weeks and Sunday was easy to get off (because most of US was Christian) because it was the Sabbath, also Wednesday was going to be the other week off but Labor pushed for Saturday too which was greatly aided by the surge in Jewish immigrants whose Shabbat is Saturday and also Henry Ford helped too because if people don't have time off, having a car to go on vacation is pointless,

So it seems that we have weekends because of those Damn Socialist monsters!!!

Discuss

 

[Kerozine]

What is the link between the labour movement and socialism?

 

[aelf]

In other news, capitalists generally care about profits and not about people. But the invisible hand will always make things fine and dandy

What is the link between the labour movement and socialism?

The labour movement is socialistic by definition. Unsurprisingly, a lot of it is socialist.

 

[Racsoviale]

I though it was common knowledge that the long weekends and shorter work hours per day was thanks to the labour unions.

there is a reason we have so many holidays in Europe compared to the USA, and a high minimum wage.

 

[Atticus]

Well, I thought that too, it never even crossed my mind that someone who's through high school doesn't know that (and this is no insult or anything). But this thread got me thinking if American curriculum focuses more on the baby eating activities of labour unions.

It could be possible that in the days of McCarthy &co they didn't want to say anything positive about socialists, and afterwards it wasn't just though worth of mentioning (since some things have to be omitted anyways, and those who decide what that something is make up their mind based partly on the school books they read. But this is just speculation, perhaps Americans could tell about it?

 

[Ecofarm]

Didn't God say to rest on Sundays (or Saturday, something like that)? I'm pretty sure he did that before labor unions or the socialist party existed.

Therefore, we should thank reactionaries.

 

[aelf]

Well, I thought that too, it never even crossed my mind that someone who's through high school doesn't know that (and this is no insult or anything). But this thread got me thinking if American curriculum focuses more on the baby eating activities of labour unions.

It could be possible that in the days of McCarthy &co they didn't want to say anything positive about socialists, and afterwards it wasn't just though worth of mentioning (since some things have to be omitted anyways, and those who decide what that something is make up their mind based partly on the school books they read. But this is just speculation, perhaps Americans could tell about it?

EMBRACE DEMOCRACY, OR YOU WILL BE ERADICATED.

 

[PiMan]

Didn't God say to rest on Sundays (or Saturday, something like that)? I'm pretty sure he did that before labor unions or the socialist party existed.

Therefore, we should thank reactionaries.

One of the days was instituted by religion, the other one by unions.

 

[Racsoviale]

Yes sundays were instituted by the church, sorry about not mentioning that one. Saturdays are Jewish sabbath, and fridays are for Islam. Because of that(imo) very convienient division I have been thinking the same religious building could be used for all three.
It would be economically beneficial and the only(that I know of) important part would be to have the different religions facing defferent directions. Something about not praying to the wrong symbol and the Muslims of coarse get the direction towards Mekka, since the other two dont have any particular rules for which way they praying.
Furthermore it would help understanding between the differing religions, as well as coorporation in the local neighbourhood.

sorry about the derailing

 

[aelf]

Uh, I don't think you read Adam Smith, did you? Or, needless to say, anything genuine about socialism.

 

[PiMan]

How much you work and not work has nothing to do with socialisms fruits, its just between you and whoever you contract to sell your labour to. Work half time or even 5 hours a week? HUrray for 6 day weekends, courtesty of capitalism.

How much I work has to do with the law saying that my employer must pay me significantly more on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as overtime laws relating to how much I work each day, week and month. Also influencing things to a lesser degree are minimum wage laws.
Without labour laws, slavery ensues.

And guess who created these laws? Political lobbyists from unions.

 

[innonimatu]

They wont pay you that if you arent worth it to them. Same thing with minimum wage. If the job's value isnt worth the minimum wage the people wont be hired, and so minimum wage creates unemployment.

This is such an obvious lie that I don't know how it can be continuously reused whenever the capitalist fanboys complain about the minimum wage.

"Job value" is not independent of wages. Therefore it cannot be used as an argument against the minimum wage. The lower the wages, the lower the "job value", for the simple reason that people can be found to do it for less.

Take agricultural work: import cheap illegal immigrant work, and you can lower the price of the goods produced. And force other producers to do the same of fail to compete. Wages are an input necessary to calculate the value of any job, as the value of its products must contain the wage costs.

A minimum wage can cause inflation, as higher costs of labor are built into products. Can cause shift of demand if there are cheaper replacement products and people buy those instead. But it won't cause an overall (for the whole economy) reduction of employment, only a change on the employment and wage pattern. Products will still be bought, and labor will still be used to create those.

The change on income patterns caused by minimum wages, I will add, reduces the inequalities which cause the well-known cyclical crisis. But if capitalists are too dumb to see where their best long-term interests lie, in stabilizing the system which allows them to profit without having to labor themselves, so be it. I hope that they keep it up until it blows on their hands.

 

[civ_king]

I though it was common knowledge that the long weekends and shorter work hours per day was thanks to the labour unions.

there is a reason we have so many holidays in Europe compared to the USA, and a high minimum wage.

I talking about weekends not long weekends...

Well, I thought that too, it never even crossed my mind that someone who's through high school doesn't know that (and this is no insult or anything). But this thread got me thinking if American curriculum focuses more on the baby eating activities of labour unions.

It could be possible that in the days of McCarthy &co they didn't want to say anything positive about socialists, and afterwards it wasn't just though worth of mentioning (since some things have to be omitted anyways, and those who decide what that something is make up their mind based partly on the school books they read. But this is just speculation, perhaps Americans could tell about it?

see high schoolers, the unions aren't baby eaters, they brought you weekends

Didn't God say to rest on Sundays (or Saturday, something like that)? I'm pretty sure he did that before labor unions or the socialist party existed.

Therefore, we should thank reactionaries.

God did indeed decide to rest on Sunday, but the labor union worked to get that day as a non-work day

Yes sundays were instituted by the church, sorry about not mentioning that one. Saturdays are Jewish sabbath, and fridays are for Islam. Because of that(imo) very convienient division I have been thinking the same religious building could be used for all three.
It would be economically beneficial and the only(that I know of) important part would be to have the different religions facing defferent directions. Something about not praying to the wrong symbol and the Muslims of coarse get the direction towards Mekka, since the other two dont have any particular rules for which way they praying.
Furthermore it would help understanding between the differing religions, as well as coorporation in the local neighbourhood.

sorry about the derailing

nice tangent, off topic but still has some good ideas (if you want to continue, make a thread)

How much I work has to do with the law saying that my employer must pay me significantly more on Saturdays and Sundays, as well as overtime laws relating to how much I work each day, week and month. Also influencing things to a lesser degree are minimum wage laws.
Without labour laws, slavery ensues.

And guess who created these laws? Political lobbyists from unions.

so, the unions had lobbyists in the late 1800s while the union people were being gunned down by police???

 

[Grombold97]

I don't trust Socialists

 

[civ_king]

I don't trust Socialists

so you hate weekends?

 

[Grombold97]

so you hate weekends?

Socialists are generally pushing for big government-atheistic-aggressive foreign policy. I don't think weekends even that out.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Didn't God say to rest on Sundays (or Saturday, something like that)? I'm pretty sure he did that before labor unions or the socialist party existed.

Therefore, we should thank reactionaries.

Genesis says God rested (although most scholars and tradition makes it clear that the word rested just means he stopped creating, not that he was tired and needed a break) on the Seventh Day, which would be Saturday in our calender. The law of Moses thus prescribed that the Jews also rest on the Seventh day, as part of the holiness code meant to draw them close to God and demonstrate the separation between them and pagan nations.

In the early church, at least when it was primarily Jewish, it seems that both Saturday and Sunday were observed as holy days. Saturday remained the Sabbath, a day of rest and reflection. Christ had commanded his followers to meet together from time to time for communion and whatnot, but had not given any schedule. The early church choose to select Sunday as the day to do this, in commemoration of the resurrection occurring on the morning of the First Day of the week. (Sometimes this was seen as the Eighth Day of the week, as 8 in biblical numerology represented a new beginning.) The Lords Day (as it was called) was not a Sabbath, not a day when people would abstain from work. On Sunday they would travel to gather together to meet, have communion, sing songs of praise, discuss any revelation that came from their reflection on the previous day, and organize charitable projects in the community. They did work on the first day of the week, but were offering their first fruits t the lord by beginning the week doing his work. The conflation of the Lords Day and the Sabbath happened when Emperor Constantine declared the Day of the Sun a Roman Holiday, on which there would be no work. (IIrc, more than a third of the days of the year were already holidays. ) This was in Roman Civil Law, and should have no bearing on Church doctrine. The concept of the Lords day and the Sabbath remained seperate for centuries, but gradually became less distinct as the predominately gentile church didn't really celebrate the sabbath anymore. It is not clear whether Constantine had become a Christian Chatechumen yet or if he was still a follower of Sol Invictus, but Sunday was important to both religions.

If I recall, Islam also teaches that the Sabbath applies only to the Jews, but that it is good for believers to regularly meet together. I believe that Friday was chosen by Muhammad rather arbitrarily, just to be different from the other Abrahamic religions. There is a movement today to try to make Friday part of the weekend too.


Working on Sundays was greatly frowned upon in America since before the Revolutionary war. The US constitution specifically mentions that Sundays do not count in the number of days the president has to sign a bill, on the assumption that neither he nor anyone else would eb working that day. I don't think labor unions ha much to do with that, although I won't deny they were important in making Saturday a non work day.

 

[woody60707]

wow, so dramatic. lol

 

[JollyRoger]

If the minimum wage is above market price of some job, people will not have the chance to go to that job, its that simple. There will be less job oppurtunities for people.

Without the minimum wage, the "market wage" would be less than the minimum wage, yet somehow, with the minimum wage those fruit picking and fast foods jobs are still available to be filled.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Socialists are generally pushing for big government-atheistic-aggressive foreign policy. I don't think weekends even that out.

They are? Wow, and all this time I thought we were for an end to imperialist wars.