On Subsistence and Slavery

Description

by Fera Sylvain. Bandicoot Pamphlets 2023

In order to maintain authority, then, subjugated people must be put to work in the creation of a surplus, the currency of Power. But work is an activity that most people take up begrudgingly – that is, unless compelled to do otherwise, they will work as little as possible (just enough).

As Joseph Winogrand explains, our word Work comes directly from Old English, and meant ‘labour’ as it does today. But it also meant “affliction, suffering, pain, trouble, distress” and in the adjective/adverb form of worky, “painful, bitter, difficult, hard…”.