The Crisis of Overproduction

The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.
-Communist Manifesto






I dreamed I had a good job
And I got well paid
Blew it all at the penny arcade
-Riding with the King

Got my unemployment check today. First time I've been on unemployment since I was discharged from the USN.

That time, it helped me fund the transition from military to civil living; find an apartment, get a job, decode the bus schedule, generally adapt to living on the economy like a regular citizen. I was 28.

Now I'm 58 and it feels like a buy-out. I don't expect I'll have as good a job as I had before I went out on disability. I was being paid at the rate of a master electrician. I don't expect I'll ever make a wage that good again. I mean, except for the princely wage I earn here at BPhD.

I'll get other jobs, of course. In fact, I started a new job last week. Three days a week, I drive a shuttle for an outfit that rents recreational machinery to daytrippers; kayaks, canoes, bicycles, solar-powered picnic baskets, that sort of thing.

I transport renters and rented from the concession stand to the boat landing or river crossing or beach or wherever it is they're going. At the appointed interval, I pick them up and return them to the concession stand and, ideally, collect a fat tip.

It's an OK job. I get paid each day. In cash. Plus tips which are also in cash. In the Great Recession, cash is King.

It's the best job I've had lately.

A couple months ago I started working at the local hippie food co-op. I sweep up the store, stock the bulk food bins, and keep the panhandlers away from the loading dock.

It's interesting work, in a way, and my co-workers are very nice. It's not actually a paid job, though. Not in money, anyway. For my labor I receive a sack of dried legumes and whatever type granola is not selling. Last week it was Funky RainForest Crunch.

Strangely, Funky RainForest Crunch is not accepted as legal tender for debts public or private. It's harder than you might think to buy a round for the lads with stale granola.

Last month was the month of Parish Festivals and, on different weekends, I worked the beer tents for St Casimir's, Our Lady of Sorrows, St Bridget's, and St Stanislaus' Mission in the Valley.

Again, interesting work and my co-workers were super nice but the toilers in the vineyards were paid in beer tickets.

I saved them up and tried redeeming them down at the local. They wouldn't take them. Anti-Catholic bastards.

This month I came closest to striking gold. I'm working at a Blues festival.

During August, the local brewery sponsors a blues festival throughout the month. Each weekend, they erect stages and seating and dance floors and beer tents and brat grills in a park adjacent to the brewery. Bands fill the stages and rock the blues till your back ain't had a bone.

My excellent references and experience working the Parish festivals got me employment in one of the beer tents. Again, the pay was in beer tickets but I've got used to that. I was able to pour out a lot of free beers for my friends. That disposed of a whole lot of incurred obligations.

Plus, you know rhythm and blues. I danced for the first time since I had the procedure.

Oh, yeah. Had some big fun. Doesn't pay the bills, though.

Last weekend, a silent auction was included with the festival. I placed the winning bid on a weekend for two at a bed and breakfast on the harbor in Bayfield, Wisconsin. I'm hoping they take beer tickets.

Next month, I'll return to my little farm in East Needle range. It's been a long time since I've been home and I don't think I'm ever going to roam again. Since I left home in January of '09 it's been pretty much one god-damned thing after another. The urge to walkabout has left me, entirely.

More to the point, though, I'm going to see if I can support myself in the manner to which I have become accustomed strictly on ag income.

It might could work. Moya thinks it will. Even though the wage labor market has collapsed, the market for ag commodities thrives. Moya says we can make yards of money.

Beef, for example. Beef on the hoof is going for a dollar a pound. We've got 32 plump Shorthorns coming off the grass in October. Figure 1000 pounds each. Now that's a payday.

5x5 round bales of #2 Colorado Red Clover are going for $75 dollars a bale, in the field. Sold 70 bales in June, 130 in July, and, if the weather holds up the rest of the month, we'll sell another hundred by the end of August. September's cut we'll keep for ourselves.

Milk prices have never been better. We've settled the argument over whether to upgrade from a Class C to a Class A dairy. We'd have to take out a loan to do the upgrade and Moya agrees we don't want to take on a note in the middle of the Great Recession. Selling milk for cheese and yogurt and suchlike is worth a thousand a month in net proceeds.

We board some livestock, too. Outfitter's horses, mostly. Right now we're boarding a four-pony string at $250 per pony per month. They're contracted through September and week-to-week after that. For a thousand dollars a month, I can shovel a lot of shit.

I'll still have some deferred wages coming in. I'm eligible for a pension from my old employer. I've got checks coming from Veterans Affairs for PTSD and Agent Orange. Dept of Def considers me 25% disabled from the PTSD and compensates me accordingly.

Moya thinks that figure can be jerked upwards a few more points. She views my infirmity as an ore deposit to be mined for royalty checks.

There's a few other little sidelines that can turn a dollar. The band, for example. We mostly play for beer money, anyway. Or beer tickets. And, like I said earlier, there's the handsome stipend from BPhD.

So, for now, anyway, I'm leaving the world of regular jobs and regular wages. They can't fire me.
I quit.