What is Work? Capitalists are really the Workers, and the Workers are really the Makers.

 On another thread of this blog which is Capitalism and Work (the things which underpin the ecological catastrophe and threaten all life on Earth).

Turns out the origin of the word "work" in the sense of "Labour" is from the same origins at Sanskrit लभते. This seems to be have the same kind of meaning as in John Locke's analysis of property, in that we take something. For John Locke the analysis surrounds the possession and eating of an apple and at which point the finder of the apple can be said to own it.

But the emphasis here is not so much in the modern notion of production and creation of products, but in the seizure of things. The taking for oneself.

This word must have a very great age because that is the nature of animal "work." You see a bird skipping through the undergrowth (probably a Turdus thrush in the Old World) and it is working in that it is looking for things to take.

Much of the later debate I have read on the nature of work, especially in Marxism, the idea of the Factory Mill being like a hive of honey bees working to make honey actually develops far beyond the origins of the term. Even honey bees actually are foragers collecting from flowers to make honey and royal jelly.

The idea of creativity, art, skill and production of something new from human hands seems to be an addition to the original idea of work.

This must be traceable in the Bible because God made the world through his work. Already there is the modern idea of work. God did not forage the world, he Made it. And Man being in God's image (altho we could just as easily turn that around) also has this power to make.

If you look at Capitalism it is very much work, rather than making. Capitalists buy and sell existing products hoping to arbitrage some profit, and the seek rents and dividends from what they own. They are simply seizing whatever they can from the world.

It is the entrepreneurs, skilled craftsmen and workers who are involved in the actual production and making.

So its quite a messed up series of concepts.

Really the Capitalists are the Workers and the Workers should really be called the Makers. 

Next up let me seize upon the origins of Make.