Worker's Song

Worker’s Song by the Dropkick Murphys was recorded as a way to show support to workers who are not earning the wage minimum for their labor power. Labor power is described as commodity which a laborer sells “to the capitalist for money” (659), while wage minimum is the “name for the price of labor power” (660). The band wrote this song in response to the falling economy that gives the worker enough wages to survive, but not enough to have a meaningful existence.

The workers “in the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines” (plyrics.com) have dangerous jobs with little pay. These workers also have to worry about their safety as well as the possibility that they could be replaced by technology or younger workers willing to be paid less for the same amount of work. As workers get older and start families, “the depreciation of the worker is taken into account the same way as the depreciation of the machine” (662). If the worker is no longer valuable, they can easily be replaced especially in an economically depressed area.

The Dropkick Murphys also comment that “we've been yoked to the plough since time first began” (plyrics.com) because certain workers are caught in a cycle made by wage minimum. The wage minimum isn’t meant to be a minimum for a single worker but rather for all the workers in the field. “Individual workers, millions of workers, do not get enough to be able to exist and reproduce themselves” (662). Instead of being able to get an education or learn new skills that would allow the worker to increase their labor power, they are stuck in the same job because they make only enough money to survive. The workers have no prospects of moving up in the world, they have essentially become slaves to their jobs.

Works Cited
Marx, Karl. "The German Ideology." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Blackwell: MA. 2004. 653-658.
Marx, Karl. "Wage Labor and Capital." Literary Theory: An Anthology. Ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. Blackwell: MA. 2004. 659-664.


Another song to consider...

Kemp

http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/millencolin/kemp.html

In the song “Kemp” by Millencolin, the lead singer is comparing himself to someone whom he sees as better than himself. His sense of self comes from what the other person says and goes through. Lacan argues that “before language assigns us an “I”, we posses no sense of self” (393). By comparing himself to this person, the lead singer knows who he is and what he stands for.

Lacan also believes that “our identity is given to us from outside” (393). The lead singer from Millencolin says “I am indeed a flop if you say so” (plyrics.com). He doesn’t know who is unless this person tells him. The singer tries to be this other person by externalizing his feelings and giving them to the person he is talking about. All of the examples the singer gives in the song are negative and he believes that he is a lesser person. This changes when he says, “I feel a need to stop so I say no” (plyrics.com). At this point, the singer becomes his own person.

Rather than continuing to compare himself to this person, he realizes that he is a “thorn in his [your] side” (plyrics.com). The singer realizes that he needs to form his own identity if he wants to be happy. Instead of gaining his identity from this unnamed person, the singer has his own identity and realizes that he is a nuisance to the person he is singing about.