The Hustle Is A Lie

When Karl Marx describes the condition of workers under capitalism-- a truly miserable existence, shot through with estrangement and alienation-- he notes a startling paradox at the heart of that condition: the worker becomes poorer the more wealth he produces. Because the ideology of capitalism assumes that human beings are fundamentally self-interested by nature and that their world is primarily characterized by scarcity, capitalist political economy requires workers to compete with one another for resources, for the chance to sell their labor for wages and, ultimately, for survival. Workers have no time to question the legitimacy of these requirements, each of which is supported by a series of myths, because all of their energy and time is devoted to producing. The fact that workers never become wealthy, that they are never rewarded for their production, that they cannot "win" the competition into which they have been involuntarily entered, that they never can (or will) pull themselves out of their miserable station, that individuals workers only ever become poorer and the working class only ever becomes more numerous, even as their production of goods and wealth increases-- all of these together coalesce to form the mind-numbing paradox elucidated by Marx.

Confronted with the paradox that Marx describes, the obvious question is: why does the worker consent to his or her own alienation?  Why compete in a "fixed" game that cannot be won? Every day, millions of workers-- in fact, billions of workers-- continue to sell their labor like any other commodity on the market, only they sell their labor at a price that, at best, can only sustain mere subsistence.  Any surplus value workers produce is taken (stolen) from them by their employers, who own not only the products, the means of production, and the profits, but also in a very real sense own their workers, too.

The worker's life is a never-ending hustle to survive. If you asked the worker-- let's call him "Marcus Miserable"-- why he continues to play in these hunger games, Marcus would say he works for wages. Marcus believes wages (money) is necessary to purchase goods (clothing, shelter, food, etc), which cannot be acquired in any way other than on an market of "free" exchanges.  Money is not directly necessary for survival, but it is indirectly necessary. No one dies from a lack of money alone, Mr. Miserable would tell us.  One dies from hunger, or sickness, or violence, or any other number of ails that may or may not be averted with enough wealth, but one does not die from poverty.

The brilliance of the film In Time (2011) is that it removes the indirect links between money, power, and survival. In doing so, we are able to see how the worker's hustle is directly linked to his or her life-time. When Marcus Miserable watches the dollars in his bank account diminish day by day, he does not fear that he will actually die if the balance reaches zero. ("I'll work an extra shift. I'll get a second job. I'll sell my car, or pawn my wedding ring, or indebt myself to a predatory lender. I'll steal, or sell drugs, or find some other side-hustle," Marcus says to his wife, his children, and himself.) The film In Time presents us with a world in which these sorts of self-assuring stories are clearly shown to be fairy tales, because the film gives us workers who literally see their time of death creeping up on them at all times.

In Time is an excellent example of how film can sometimes communicate an idea (in this case, Marx's idea of workers' alienation and the exploitative nature of capitalism) more effectively and more convincingly than speech or text can. I wonder if the Marcuses of our world would be so committed to the hustle if they wore their life-times on their arm, if they saw how insignificant their deaths were on every payday, and if each purchase they made or bill they paid was directly linked to their survival. I wonder if the Marcuses of our world would take to the streets, revolt, refuse to compete with each other and instead join together to liberate workers from their miserable lives.

And, most importantly, I wonder: if Marcus could see that money is time and time is life, would he be willing to finally admit that one can die of poverty?