Your Enemy
Our enemy - is enemy too strong of a word, perhaps it's too far fetching of a term?
I had this question, but having revisited its definition I revoke such sympathetic doubts. According to the Oxford dictionary an enemy is ‘a person who is actively opposed or hostile to someone or something’. The class of society that owns the world we live in and the places we work are undeniably opposed to the class of society that makes up the majority of the world - workers. You may think I am being flippant, however it is incontestably imperative by the nature of capitalism that owners do all they can to minimise the share of production kept by workers. It goes by saying that the reverse is also true, workers want to receive as much of the fruits of their labour as possible. This antagonism is exerted through workers' collective struggle and the existence of trade unions. Trade unions know who their enemy is. However, with trade union membership falling in OECD countries on average by over 50% in the past 40 years; workers are more and more atomised and less unified against their enemy. This has created room for all sorts of narratives and explanations for why real wages have continually dropped. The loudest voice in the room has been that of much of our political and media class. Over the last decades this elite class has reacted to the fall in living standards by the old age tactic of divide and rule. Drip feeding fearmongering and hate politics as answers to the questions were all asking. The class of society thats interests oppose those of workers have repeatedly steered the vessel of public critique away from themselves. Scapegoating a new ‘underclass’ instead of addressing economic realities. We need to see through the veil of fabricated lies. Our enemy is the one whose interest is our disinterest.
Screenprint
Newsprint
50 x 65cm
