Work is the Curse of the Drinking Man

I don't like to work. I am not one of the people who can get up every morning, raring to go, glad to be on the way to their job. I'd rather be slacking, riding my scoot around the countryside on a beautiful spring day.

That said, I go to work instead. It's not simply that I need the money--I can certainly use it--but that it is a responsiblility that I have assumed by choice; a decision to not have someone else take care of me.


I have not always been this way about work. When I was much younger, I "retired" for a few years, doping, slacking, hitchiking around and panhandling for whatever I could scrounge. It was fun and educational. One can really survive out of dumpsters. (Or sleeping in one, if it's raining hard enough and there are no other options.)

I developed a few habits after those years---eating unspoiled food, wearing clean, dry clothes, enjoying a heated place to defecate. I got soft, college-educated, and finally, when I could avoid it no further, a full-time job.

I didn't get a high-paying professional job, no, not me. I wound up with a series of low-paying houspainting and retail jobs. I could bitch about the hourly, but it all taught me. There is honor in doing any job well.

Which gets me to the meat of this rant--the social contract between all members of society should provide these four things at a minimum to anyone that is willing to work a full-time job in that society. They are:

• Sufficient good food.
• Warm clothes.
• A roof over their head.
• A visit to the village shaman should they become ill.

Now, none of these things need be luxurious. Food can be simple, but healthful, clothes simple and non-stylish, housing cramped and unassuming, medical care simply adequate...but they need to be affordable in the aggregate. In some American communities, sadly, this is not the case.

This is the issue that minimum-wage laws were meant to address. Unfortunately, they have not done so to great effect. The working poor, as a class, are increasing in number, both as a percentage of the work force as well as raw number. As more and more people are unable to provide the four items I bulleted before, the social contract breaks down. Hungry people do stupid, desperate things. When they do these things, we put them in jail, which costs taxpayers money.

One wonders, what costs less....jailing people, or making sure they can get a living wage?