This is the result of decades of policy favoring capital over labor. Tax rates on capital gains are lower than taxes on income earned through labor. The Supreme Court tells us that corporations are people too. Congress passes tax reform with permanent tax cuts for corporations but individual tax cuts that expire. Corporations run multi million dollar ad campaigns lauding “essential workers” as “heroes” yet they continue to pay a minimum wage that verges on poverty wages. Capital owners multiply their wealth every time a disaster hits while labor is still reeling from the last one.

What message is labor supposed to take from all of this? We are not valued at all, so why even bother? If society is set up to be a system where we all just trade paper and bits back and forth, then why do any productive work at all if you’re going to end up getting shit on?