Okay, okay, that title sounds a bit clickbaity. But hear me out.
Tell me what you feel when you think of the weekend. Sounds nice, doesn’t it? A couple days where you frolic on the beach, enjoy long lunches, catch up with friends and family, work on that hobby project, or just laze around at home. Its two days of bliss, of relaxation, until you reenter into the truggery of modern work.
Your week is the opposite of the weekend. Hurried mornings to get to to work, hustling to get an ever-growing list of responsibilities and work completed in an every-dwindling amount of time. Your boss (or your customers) demand more from you each day. You work harder for the same amount of pay, while the cost of everything continues to rise. You return home, exhausted, before you start you domestic shift of making dinner, cleaning your home, performing administrative work like paying bills and organising appointments, before finally collapsing in bed and repeating the cycle.
When 70% of your week is work to the point of exhaustion, 2 days of relaxation sure sound nice don’t they?
It sounds strange, but we haven’t always had a weekend. The weekend is a relatively modern invention. Although things like the Sabbith existed, the idea of a formalised two-day weekend was first conceptualised during the industrial revolution, where factory workers demanded a greater break from the harsh working conditions of the factories.
Prior to this, there was no concept of the weekend; every day you entered back into the forest to look for your next meal, or you went back to your farm to tend to your crops to prepare for harvest. Life was simpler, albeit harder and less predictable. Most people were what modern society would call “entrepreneurs” or “small business owners”. Being employed by another person wasn’t as commonplace as it is today.
Our original capitalistic masters convinced us to trade off our freedom for security. They would guarantee that we’d be feed, sheltered, and clothed as long as we gave them our life. That was an attractive trade for most.
Originally this trade was worth it, as we were paid so much more than we could make in our own enterprises. However this was just the start; the capitalists knew that they could slowly squeeze more out of us over time, much like the frog boiled alive. They made us work harder, longer, and get paid less. It was capitalistic serfdom.
Workers eventually had enough and demanded more time off. The standard one-day of rest was no longer sufficient, given how hard they were working, and instead they required two days. And hence the modern weekend was born as a way to placate the masses while keeping them enslaved.
Think of it this way: if you only worked 4 hours each day, instead of 8+ hours, do you think you’d still need two days per week? I’d argue no.
This is why I think the weekend is an addiction. Each week we work ourselves to the bone for our “next fix” of two days off. Just long enough to keep us from revolting. Each week we chase that high of freedom again and repeat the cycle.
So how do we escape the matrix per se? Some extremists encourage you to “revolt” and “eat the rich”. Yes, conceptually, that sounds nice. But how do you plan to do that? You can’t farm, you can’t fight, and you probably can’t organise enough people to revolt. You might not even want to: capitalism has provided us with a lot of modern luxuries that I know I couldn’t live without and reverting to a simpler system would probably only cause my life to get worse, not better.
My solution is to become a capitalist yourself. You live in a capitalist system, so play the capitalist’s game. So start a business. Sell your services. Don’t give into modern slavery. Market yourself and charge what you’re worth.
This is how certain sects of society have managed to avoid being absorbed by the capitalistic system: they form an intra-capitalistic society where they trade amongst themselves, resulting in a greater economic benefit of the group, as the excess value generated from their trade stays within their community. Think how jewish people work with other jewish people, or alumni with other alumni.
You’re a chippy? Don’t work for a big carpenter. Go solo, find other small business who want to work with you. Start a revolution by rejecting conglomerates and other big enterprises. Play the game, be ethical, and try to return all of your excess profits back into your community as best as you know how.
You’re a software engineer? I get it you might need to cut your teeth at a Google or similar, but as soon as you can exit the system and go out on your own. Work with small businesses who you think would benefit from your skills. Eventually, if you can, contribute back to society by providing an environment where new engineers can enter into the industry without having to sell their soul to companies like Google.
How does this solve the problem? Well, as a capitalist, you retain this freedom you crave. You can set your own hours, charge whatever you like, and work however you like. Is it as secure as traditional employment? Hell no. But that’s the price you pay for your freedom.
If we revolt like good capitalists, and reject companies and organisations who wish to exploit us, all they can do is bend to our will and provide better working conditions for everyone involved. Companies aren’t intrinsically evil: they are just amoral and motivated by profit only. So make it that profits mean a good outcome for society.
For any feedback or corrections, please write in to: Kale Miller