The Capital/Labor Split

photo by Sue Gardner

Thomas Piketty

To commemorate Labor Day, a quote from Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century:

On August 16, 2012, the South African police intervened in a labor conflict between workers at the Marikana platinum mine near Johannesburg and the mine’s owners: the stockholders of Lonmin, Inc., based in London. Police fired on the strikers with live ammunition. Thirty-four miners were killed. As often in such strikes, the conflict primarily concerned wages: the miners had asked for a doubling of their wage from 500 to 1,000 euros a month. After the tragic loss of life, the company finally proposed a monthly raise of 75 euros.

This episode reminds us, if we needed reminding, that the question of what share of output should go to wages and what share to profits— in other words, how should the income from production be divided between labor and capital?— has always been at the heart of distributional conflict. In traditional societies, the basis of social inequality and most common cause of rebellion was the conflict of interest between landlord and peasant, between those who owned land and those who cultivated it with their labor, those who received land rents and those who paid them. The Industrial Revolution exacerbated the conflict between capital and labor, perhaps because production became more capital intensive than in the past (making use of machinery and exploiting natural resources more than ever before) and perhaps, too, because hopes for a more equitable distribution of income and a more democratic social order were dashed. I will come back to this point.

The Marikana tragedy calls to mind earlier instances of violence. At Haymarket Square in Chicago on May 1, 1886, and then at Fourmies, in northern France, on May 1, 1891, police fired on workers striking for higher wages. Does this kind of violent clash between labor and capital belong to the past, or will it be an integral part of twenty- first- century history? (39, footnotes omitted)

John Henry on Labor Day

John Henry by Ken Thomas

In honor of Labor Day, here are the lyrics to John Henry, along with a link to Springsteen’s version of the song:

John Henry

Well John Henry was a little baby
Sittin’ on his daddy’s knee
He picked up a hammer and
a little piece of steel
And cried, “Hammer’s gonna
be death of me, Lord, Lord
Hammer’s gonna be the death of me”Now the captain he
said to John Henry
“I’m gonna bring that
steam drill around
I’m gonna bring that
steam drill out on these tracks
I’m gonna knock that
steel on down, God, God
I’m gonna knock that
steel on down”John Henry told his captain
“Lord a man ain’t noth’ but a man
But before I let that steam drill
beat me down
I’m gonna die with a hammer
in my hand, Lord, Lord
I’ll die with a hammer in my hand”John Henry driving
on the right side
That steam drill driving
on the left
Says, “Fore I let your
steam drill beat me down
I’m gonna hammer
myself to death, Lord, Lord,
I’ll hammer my fool self to death”

Well captain said to John Henry
“What is that storm I hear?”
John Henry said, “That
ain’t no storm captain
That’s just my hammer
in the air, Lord, Lord
That’s just my hammer in the air”

John Henry said to his shaker
“Shaker, why don’t you sing?
Cause I’m swingin’ thirty pounds
from my hips on down
Yeah, listen to my cold steel
ring, Lord Lord

Listen to my cold steel ring”

John Henry he hammered
in the mountains
His hammer was striking fire
But he worked so hard;
it broke his heart
John Henry laid down his hammer
and died, Lord, Lord

John Henry laid down his hammer and died

Well, now John Henry
he had him a woman
By the name of Polly Ann
She walked out to those tracks
Picked up John Henry’s hammer
Polly drove steel like a man, Lord, Lord
Polly drove that steel like a man

Well every, every Monday morning
When a blue bird he began to sing
You could hear John Henry
from a mile or more
You could hear John Henry’s hammer
ring, Lord, Lord
You can hear John Henry’s hammer ring
I say, You can John Henry’s
hammer ring, Lord, Lord
You can John Henry’s
hammer ring

Commemorating Labor Day

PSALM OF LIFE
     Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! —
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real ! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.