It’s Labour Day again and that time of the year when the familiar background din of poverty porn and rhetoric around the “victimisation” of workers is put front-and-centre and amplified to circus-grade. At the centre of all this noise is the idea that need determines pay and wealth obligates “giving”. Never mind, of course that the very same drumbeaters of this perverse “socialism” are the very same ones who espouse “freedom” in the similarly perverse way they define the term.
The fact is, there is this inconvenient formula that governs pretty much all life on Planet Earth — the Law of Supply and Demand. When one appreciates and embraces this fact of our very existence, the true reason why so many Filipinos don’t have jobs becomes crystal clear.
How much you are paid or whether or not anyone is interested in paying for your work, for that matter, represents the monetary value society rates you. When you struggle to find work, it simply means your value to society is zero. Simple, right? You can wax poetry about how a “liveable wage” is a “right” ’til the cows come home and you may even get all sorts of “socialist” legislation crafted after twisting the arm or arms of a politician or two. Ultimately, however, what goes up most come down one way or another.
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One cannot argue against the fact that the Philippines’ is a capital-poor economy. On a per capita basis, there are few assets that yield sustained income. It is upon the blood and sweat of Filipino workers and the businesses that profit off what these workers consume that the Philippine economy ticks along. It is a labour-added-value- and consumption-based national economy. Foreign “investors” come to the Philippines to farm out work the value of which is not worth the First World salaries they’d pay onshore for. Their bean counters did the maths and worked out that the lower productivity and quality of work in the Third World is an acceptable cost vis à vis the peanuts they will be paying the average worker there. Other foreign “investors” come to put up businesses that sell to these same workers the final product of their labours — at enormous premium, of course.
It is important to note that work that requires exceptional skill — precision, craftsmanship, design and lateral thinking, and expensive specialist training, among others, are retained onshore by First World businesses. Brands that allow these businesses to demand prices ten times the cost of manufacturing their product are also owned by these businesses. All the foreign “investor” really values in the countries where they “offshore” work to is raw labour.
All this sounds quite stark when one applies an emo mind to the truth about contracts between capital and labour. It is this habitual emotional take on the banality of this contract that communists and wokedom feed upon. The destructive ideology of victimhood they propagate is what keeps today’s Philippine Opposition from evolving towards the constructive political force Philippine democracy needs.
Labour Day obviously celebrates the worker. It is communism’s Christmas Day. It is a celebration of all that the Philippines is to the world — a vast well of labour. Beyond this “resource” what else in the way of economic value do Filipinos offer the world? Not much else.
Happy Labour Day.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
“How much you are paid or whether or not anyone is interested in paying for your work, for that matter, represents the monetary value society rates you.”
That should be emphasized in the Constitution. Perhaps it’s time to make it clear for everybody.
Which makes you think just how much exactly Mr. benign0 was rated among others by the same society when he was working here before he abandon the Philippines for Australia.
Abandon? The way you say it gave me an impression that migrating to another country is wrong but I could be wrong with my impression. I really don’t know why many Filipinos frown upon emigration or migrating to other countries like it’s wrong.
“How much you are paid or whether or not anyone is interested in paying for your work, for that matter, represents the monetary value society rates you.”
This means that many workers in the Philippines are not valuable to the society since salaries are low there.
How consistent and reliable is that rating process if it is just based on the “Law of Supply and Demand”? If an innovator decides to make his technology accessible, how does that figure into the scheme?
One could at least be objective enough to recognize the downside of any system. It seems easier to condemn than to make a fair assessment.
The Philippines is the source of cheap labor; compared to first world countries.
Anyone remember Chip Tsao’s “Nation of Servants?” Filipinos were up in arms over that, but when you look at it closely, it’s sadly true. Most Filipinos are willing to be wage-slaves because that’s what they see as the solution for “pag-aangat sa buhay.” And they see pag-aangat as getting as many consumer goods as possible and following the fads in order to wipe out the impression or self-perception that they are poor… that’s basically it. Filipinos don’t have higher aspirations, all they’re after is surpassing (and not just keeping up with) the Joneses and trying to not feel poor, and if being wage-slaves is the key to that, then they will accept it. Nation-building will be an alien concept to such a mindset.
This is why discrimination based on wealth and social status are common in Ph as well as why many people there are social climbers. I even hear of the poor being discriminated by people who are only marginally above the poverty line.