We want to know from children what questions they are concerned about. This question comes from Ella, 7 years old.
Rehearsals for the emergency: A child plays shop Photo: Dreamstime/imago
Dear Ella, you probably hear adults saying all the time: I have to go to work now. “Have to” is a word that you have probably come across many times, perhaps when doing crafts: Look, Ella, you have to hold the scissors like this or like that. Or as a condition for being allowed to do something: If you want to go outside, you have to put on sunscreen first. Or put on rubber boots.
Having to work is a tricky thing. There once lived a man with a long beard. His name was Karl Marx and he wrote long books about wage labor. This is work that adults do and get a wage for, usually money. They get this from their employer or client, often companies. They provide their workers with everything they need to work – pens, paper, computers, tools. The workers use this to produce something that their employers can sell. All the tools, or the workshop or office in which the workers produce, belong to the companies. It is also called capital. This is where the name of the system we live in comes from – capitalism.
Now there is a trick that companies use to increase their capital – everything that belongs to them. They do not pay their workers more than is absolutely necessary. Then they sell what the workers have produced at a higher price and keep the money that is left over. Unfortunately, there are a few people, owners of companies, for example, who have a lot of money, and on the other hand there are a lot of people who have to work a lot but often have very little.
This text comes from the weeklytaz. Our weekly newspaper from the left! Every week, the wochentaz is about the world as it is – and how it could be. A left-wing weekly newspaper with a voice, attitude and the special taz view of the world. New every Saturday at the kiosk and of course by subscription.
Of course, you could grow your own vegetables in the garden. That costs less than buying them in the supermarket. Or you could mend clothes when they have holes in them instead of buying new ones. That way you need less money to live on and maybe you would have to work less. Or you could look for a job that you like. Then at least you’d enjoy going to work.
