The People's Bailout: A May Day Speech*

By Paul Street

I'd like to thank Wild Rose Rebellion and others who participated in planing this May Day event for inviting me to speak on this day that so few Americans have been allowed to know as the original labor day, born right here in the United States in connection with the struggle for the Eight Hour Day - for a human work day.

TIME, DEMOCRACY, AND CAPITALISM

You know, if you go back and look at the original arguments that working people and their organizations - unions - made for shorter hours, you find something very interesting. They didn't just talk about the physical and psychological and family problems that came with constant overwork under the control of their bosses. They didn't just talk about the fact that the bosses cheated them out of extra hours and minutes every day. They didn't just talk about how shorter hours would mean spreading out the work which would mean more jobs and thus less unemployment and poverty for working people.

They talked about all of that but that also said two others things that are worth remember and reflecting upon today. First, they argued that you can't have a democracy if people don't have the time to participate in it. They said that the democratic promises of the American Revolution didn't mean anything for people who are denied the free time and the energy to study and discuss and organize and form associations about the great issues of the day.

Second, the Haymarket Martyrs and other Eight Hour leaders said that when you have and use the time to study history and current events and the society in which you live you often come to see that democracy can't really be reconciled with the capitalist profits system. You find, they said, that the glorious democratic ideal of popular self-rule doesn't mix very well with the class system of bosses and workers of rich and poor, and of order givers and order-takers. It doesn't blend with an economic system that concentrates ever more wealth and power in the hands of the privileged and corporate Few.
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