Last week we were assigned sections of Henry Thoreau’s Walden. His section on ‘Economy’ was interesting as a whole but there were a few pages and specific passages I thought still greatly apply to the world today. I wanted to take a further look at two of them.
First, Thoreau refers to the laborer as some one with “no time to be anything but a machine”. This phrase could very well be applied to the working force today in a few different ways. Although a ‘laborer’ in the time of Thoreau is very different than the ‘laborer’ of the 21st century, there is striking similarity between the lifestyles. Literally it can be applied because the majority of work is now done on/with machines. With the assembly line, laborers skill level is minimal. The laborer is one who is faceless to the consumer society. With the raging capitalism and mass production in corporations like Walmart, laborers are forced into factories where their face is irrelevant and their rate of production is all that matters. They are essentially a “machine”. If they break (get sick, injured, etc.) they can be easily replaced with a new part (employee) as there is no shortage of people entering the work force on a daily basis.