This Labor Day, Celebrate Intellectual Labor

 The United States Department of Labor, speaking on The History of Labor Day, had this to say on its website:

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

Really? There is no doubt about what is meant here. McGuire was referring to people who “work with their hands”. Is that what built America? Physical labor has existed since time immemorial. What changed in the last two hundred + years that suddenly endowed the American worker with the means to produce “all the grandeur we behold” out of raw, “rude” nature? (Note the word “all”).

The American worker has, indeed, contributed significantly to the American Economic juggernaut. But, it was not because of his labor, as such. It was because of his intellectual mastery of the theoretical and material tools of production provided to him that vastly increased the value of his labor.

Physical labor, as such, has very little value. Slaves can perform it. So can mules pulling hand plows.

Consider my trade, plumbing. If my job is fundamentally physical labor, then any able-bodied person off of the street can wander onto any construction job site and robotically perform the task of installing plumbing systems. He can simply be told: “Run this pipe from here to there”, and it will get done. He has the same muscles and bones, nerves and guts that I have, after all.

That, of course, could never be the case. Performing my task (or any construction trade) requires reliance on previously acquired theoretical knowledge, on-the-job apprenticeship training, the mastery of the tools, materials, and procedures of the trade, and years of learning experience. This is to say nothing of the continuing education that new materials and technologies require of me.

My job is knowledge-based. All modern jobs are, to varying extent. How did that knowledge become imbued in my brain? - by my choice to expend the intellectual effort to acquire it. Even the muscular physical motions my job requires had to be learned by a conscious mental effort that led to the appropriate neurological connections.

Do you still think mere physical labor built this country?

The idea that a laborer “works with his hands” is only superficially true. What directs the motions of his hands? It is his focussed, reasoning mind – if he is a motivated worker who strives to be the best that he can be at his chosen occupation. If not, then that worker is a mere drone.

And that gets directly to the point. The celebration of “labor” as a holiday implies that mindless worker. Labor Day ignores the intellectual root of modern, productive labor. It ignores the intellectual labor of the inventor and entrepreneur that created the worker’s job—and the workers' tools and processes—to begin with, and the intellectual labor that the competent worker must expend to learn to perform his job.

Human knowledge is fleeting, but for the grace of those who came before us and chose to acquire it and pass it on. Knowledge can not be passed on from person to person or generation to generation innately. No one is born with previously discovered knowledge, but rather with a mind that is tabula rasa – a blank slate. To celebrate “all the grandeur we behold”, it is to the discoverer and the acquirers of knowledge that we must pay initial gratitude to. The worker, by learning the skills he needs to perform his job, plays his role in keeping that knowledge train going.

This does not, however, mean that labor is inconsequential. Theoretical knowledge in and of itself has little value, unless and until it is placed into the service of man’s living requirements. The process of turning knowledge into the material values humans need to live and to flourish is dependent upon the contributions of many economic players. The value of each player’s contribution to this productive process varies and is dependent upon many factors. But all through that process – from the discoverer of new knowledge to the final material product put together by the worker – the value added represents, at root, the application of the mind.

“[W]hen you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.

“When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think…” (Page 1064)

Labor Day, according to the DOL, was created in 1882. That was the heyday of Karl Marx’s rise to prominence among the American intellectual elite. Marx was the theoretician of “Dialectical Materialism”, the idea that man’s consciousness – his spirit, his intellect, ability, and logic – plays at best a minimal role in the production process. Human beings, according to Marx, are conditioned by the physical world around them, including the means of production like tools and factories, which just happened into existence. Our modern, complex, and advanced industrial society is the product of mindless, conditioned muscular movements, according to Marx (and others). It is owing to the Marxist theory of the mind – i.e., spiritual values - as of little consequence that gave rise to the myth that labor and those that perform it are the primary engines of economic progress.

Labor Day, whether one knows or wants to admit it or not, is an outgrowth of Marxism and the “labor theory of economic value” that so enamored late 19th century American intellectuals.

The DOL concludes its Labor Day salute as follows:

"It is appropriate … that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker."

Not quite. Instead, we should pay tribute to the creator of the American worker.

This Labor Day, we should celebrate not just workers, but those who made our jobs and prosperity possible. This country was not built by physical labor. It was built by intellectual labor applied to physical labor under a system of individual rights that allowed everyone the freedom to think and, above all, to act on his thinking. Instead of patting ourselves on the back for our labor, we “workers” should reflect on the mental efforts that we had to expend in order to acquire the previously discovered knowledge that makes it possible to perform our jobs. We should stop selling ourselves short. Labor Day is an insult to the American Worker.

More importantly, we should give silent thanks to all of those intellectual “laborers” who came before us – the discoverers, the inventors, the investors, the businessmen - who made our well-paying jobs possible.

Instead of Labor Day, we should celebrate Intellectual Labor Day.

Or, better yet, we should celebrate political and economic freedom—i.e., Capitalism – the social system of the United States of America. Capitalism unleashed the individual human mind. It is Capitalism that liberated the inventor, entrepreneur, businessman, and industrialist, who in turn made it possible for the American worker to have acquired the means to rise to middle class status and prosper. The labor movement fought for better working condiditions, shorter work weeks, and the like. But those victories couldn't have been possible without the tools of increased worker productivity and consumer products created by the inventor/entrepreneur/businessman/industrialist, who wouldn't have been possible without capitalism. The labor movement could not have been possible in any other era in human history. Capitalism made the labor movement possible.

It is Capitalism’s liberated human mind that from rude nature has delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.

Capitalism is what I will be quietly rejoicing as I enjoy my long weekend.

Happy Labor Day!!

Related Reading:

Atlas Shrugged—Ayn Rand

To Whom Does the American Worker Owe His Prowess?

Did Unions Create the Middle Class?

QUORA: 'How is becoming a billionaire even possible, chronologically?'

Another View:

Don’t Forget to Celebrate Capital on Labor Day, Too from FEE

"Labor is ennobling because it’s an important source of such values as self-esteem, personal fulfillment, responsibility, accomplishment, and voluntary cooperation. It’s both a vehicle and an outlet for our talents and ambitions. Good parents instinctively teach their children that work is a virtue and a benefit, while idleness and laziness are to be avoided.

"But all of that could also be said of another vital ingredient in our standard of living—capital. Most of us would starve without it. Creating it and then deploying it to increase material wealth is ennobling just as much as labor is, and for the same reasons. The creator and user of capital is furthering his talents and ambitions in the process. And every parent who tells his child to mow the lawn hopes he’ll do it with a piece of capital equipment like a lawn mower instead of his teeth."

[True. But never reverse cause and effect. Without labor -- especially the labor of the mind -- capital is useless. In fact, it doesn't exist.]

The Incredible Small-Mindedness of the Biden/Harris Administration

The recent port strike featured this Washington Post report: Biden may face tough choices as port strike continues. The subtitle read “The White House has firmly backed the union, but Democrats are eager to avoid economic disruptions weeks before Election Day.”

My emphasis.

But should the president be taking any side in a private contractual dispute? A statesman wouldn’t. But America has few real statesmen these days. And Joe Biden is as far from a statesman as you will ever see. I analyzed this issue in a Facebook post:

“Biden on Tuesday urged the port employers to produce an offer to the striking workers that includes a “meaningful increase” in their wages, citing the dangerous work they did during the pandemic.”

I find it an absolute obscenity the way the Biden Administration has reacted to the dockworkers strike. It’s true that America has long been short on political statesmen—politicians who recognize that, once in office, they put their fiduciary responsibilities to represent the entire nation before their personal political interests.

But this administration, in brazenly throwing the weight of the federal government behind the dockworkers and against the shipping companies, has sunk to an unbelievable low point. This is a private contractual dispute, and the government should not be pressuring one side or the other on the issues. True statesmen would maintain strict neutrality unless laws are being broken, which for now I don’t think is the case. 

This administration, from the President on down, is a gang of small-minded political hacks who can’t distinguish between a political campaign and the heavy responsibility of actually governing a great country. By taking sides, Biden and his ilk are likely lengthening the strike and its cascading hardships, likely inflaming the situation, and in the process throwing industries, businesses, employees, and consumers across the economy under the bus. They are a disgrace to this nation.

The Post also reported:

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, said in a statement Wednesday that “this strike is about fairness,” calling for “a fair share” of shipping profits for union workers and blasting her Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump, for his overall record on labor issues when he was in the White House.

So everything I said about Biden also applies to Kamala Harris. And why should the shipping companies share their profits with the workers? Those profits legitimately belong to the companies’ shareholders, just as the workers’ wages legitimately belong to the workers. If, in hard times when their profits are low or non-existent, someone suggested that the workers “share” their wages with the shipping companies, Harris and her ilk would no doubt scream bloody murder.  

Related Reading:

2018 SCOTUS ‘Agency Fee’ Ruling a Victory for the Rights of Working People

NLRB ‘Grants’ Students ‘Right to Unionize,’ Which Really Means Power to Coerce

The Future of Organized Labor Should Be Volunterism

End “Collective Bargaining Rights” and “Right-to-Work” Laws, my article in The Objective Standard

End Government Intrusion into Labor-Management Contracts

Law-Favored Unions are Quasi-Criminal Organizations

The Inherent Corruption of Public Sector Unionization

In a NJ Spotlight News op-ed, Tammy Murphy’s candidacy exposes nepotism, business as usual in NJ, Marc Gaswirth writes about the nepotism of New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s wife running for NJ senator. Though the main focus of the article is Tammy Murphy’s obvious connection to her governor husband, another item caught my attention:

[The New Jersey Governor is] bestowed with constitutionally enormous power and influence, [so Phil Murphy] will continue to drive the state’s education agenda during his remaining time in office, and that means, if the past is a predictor of future behavior, the NJEA’s [New Jersey Education Association, or teachers union} agenda.  

Gov. Murphy has been the most pro-teachers’ union governor in New Jersey history. Since 2018, he and a compliant legislature have approved several major union legislative initiatives by largely bypassing and usurping the local collective bargaining process.

The very idea of a “pro-teachers’ union governor” points to the fundamental corruption of public sector unions. Since the government is their employer, the power of these unions draws directly from the coercive, law-making powers of the state. By being able to form political organizations, these unions can work to elect friendly politicians that will work for them, rather than the broader public that the duty of elected officials demands. This is unlawful, since federal law forbids government employees from using the gun-power of the government to advance their own interests at the expense of the public these political leaders are supposed to represent. Furthermore, public employees represent the public, so there is a huge conflict of interest when they organize to negotiate against the public. The teachers union gets to “negotiate,” not with a representative of the public, but with its own political crony. In effect, the negotiating table features the teachers union and Gov. Phil Murphy on one side, and nobody on the side of the broader public. That is the very definition of corruption.

Contrast Murphy with our last governor. I sorely miss Governor Chris Christie. He was the rare NJ governor who actually represented the broader tax-paying, student-supplying public in dealing with the teachers unions.

I speak as a union member myself, the plumbers union, a private-sector trade union. But my union, being private, is completely different in kind from the public unions. It’s not that the teachers union, and all public sector unions, engage in some corrupt activity that can be weeded out. The truth is, they are inherently, systemically, irredeemably corrupt. At the very least, public sector unions should immediately be legally banned from all political activity, be it fundraising, political donations, campaigning, candidate or issue endorsements and promotions, running PACs, or whatever. Ultimately, public sector unions are unconstitutional and should be outlawed. 

Related Reading:

School Choice is About Freedom, not "Union-Busting"

Is Governor Christie Winning NJ's Public School War?

Abusive Teachers Union Power Results from Government School Monopoly

Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions by Philip K. Howard

Why Government Unions—Unlike Trade Unions—Corrupt Democracy by Phillip K. Howard for Time

The Liberal Case Against Public Unions by Phillip K. Howard for The Daily Beast

Several specific provisions of the Constitution safeguard against the delegation of sovereign powers. Article II grants “executive power” to the president, and numerous cases have held that Congress lacks authority to remove the president’s ability to hold inferior officers accountable. Article IV provides that “the United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” The purpose of this “Guarantee Clause,” Madison explained, was to require a linkage between voters and the people making governing decisions, thus preventing the ceding of powers to nobles or other “favored class.”

This Labor Day, Celebrate Intellectual Labor

The United States Department of Labor, speaking on The History of Labor Day, had this to say on its website:

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

Really? There is no doubt about what is meant here. McGuire was referring to people who “work with their hands”. Is that what built America? Physical labor has existed since time immemorial. What changed in the last two hundred + years that suddenly endowed the American worker with the means to produce “all the grandeur we behold” out of raw, “rude” nature? (Note the word “all”).

The American worker has, indeed, contributed significantly to the American Economic juggernaut. But, it was not because of his labor, as such. It was because of his intellectual mastery of the theoretical and material tools of production provided to him, that vastly increased the value of his labor.

Physical labor, as such, has very little value. Slaves can perform it. So can mules pulling hand plows.

Consider my trade, plumbing. If my job is fundamentally physical labor, then any able-bodied person off of the street can wander onto any construction job site and robotically perform the task of installing plumbing systems. He can simply be told: “Run this pipe from here to there”, and it will get done. He has the same muscles and bones, nerves and guts that I have, after all.

That, of course, could never be the case. Performing my task (or any construction trade) requires reliance on previously acquired theoretical knowledge, on-the-job apprenticeship training, the mastery of the tools, materials, and procedures of the trade, and years of learning experience. This is to say nothing of the continuing education that new materials and technologies require of me.

My job is knowledge-based. All modern jobs are, to varying extent. How did that knowledge become imbued in my brain? - by my choice to expend the intellectual effort to acquire it. Even the muscular physical motions my job requires had to be learned by a conscious mental effort that led to the appropriate neurological connections.

Do you still think mere labor built this country?

The idea that a laborer “works with his hands” is only superficially true. What directs the motions of his hands? It is his focussed, reasoning mind – if he is a motivated worker who strives to be the best that he can be at his chosen occupation. If not, then that worker is a mere drone.

And that gets directly to the point. The celebration of “labor” as a holiday implies that mindless worker. Labor Day ignores the intellectual root of modern, productive labor. It ignores the intellectual labor of the inventor and entrepreneur that created the worker’s job to begin with, and the intellectual labor that the competent worker must expend to learn to perform his job.

Human knowledge is fleeting, but for the grace of those who came before us and chose to acquire it and pass it on. Knowledge can not be passed on from person to person or generation to generation innately. No one is born with previously discovered knowledge, but rather with a mind that is tabula rasa – a blank slate. To celebrate “all the grandeur we behold”, it is to the discoverer and the acquirers of knowledge that we must pay initial gratitude to. The worker, by learning the skills he needs to perform his job, plays his role in keeping that knowledge train going.

This does not, however, mean that labor is inconsequential. Theoretical knowledge in and of itself has little value, unless and until it is placed into the service of man’s living requirements. The process of turning knowledge into the material values humans need to live and to flourish is dependent upon the contributions of many economic players. The value of each player’s contribution to this productive process varies and is dependent upon many factors. But all through that process – from the discoverer of new knowledge to the final material product put together by the worker – the value added represents, at root, the application of the mind.

“[W]hen you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.

“When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think…” (Page 1064)

Labor Day, according to the DOL, was created in 1882. That was the heyday of Karl Marx’s rise to prominence among the American intellectual elite. Marx was the theoretician of “Dialectical Materialism”, the idea that man’s consciousness – his spirit, his intellect, ability, and logic – plays at best a minimal role in the production process. Human beings, according to Marx, are conditioned by the physical world around them, including the means of production like tools and factories, which just happened into existence. Our modern, complex, and advanced industrial society is the product of mindless, conditioned muscular movements, according to Marx (and others). It is owing to the Marxist theory of the mind – i.e., spiritual values - as of little consequence that gave rise to the myth that labor and those that perform it are the primary engines of economic progress.

Labor Day, whether one knows or wants to admit it or not, is an outgrowth of Marxism and the “labor theory of economic value” that so enamored late 19th century American intellectuals.

The DOL concludes its Labor Day salute as follows:

"It is appropriate … that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker."

Not quite. Instead, we should pay tribute to the creator of the American worker.

This Labor Day, we should celebrate not workers, but those who made our jobs and prosperity possible. This country was not built by physical labor. It was built by intellectual labor applied to physical labor under a system of individual rights that allowed everyone the freedom to think and, above all, to act on his thinking. Instead of patting ourselves on the back for our labor, we “workers” should reflect on the mental efforts that we had to expend in order to acquire the previously discovered knowledge that makes it possible to perform our jobs. We should stop selling ourselves short. Labor Day is an insult to the American Worker.

More importantly, we should give silent thanks to all of those intellectual “laborers” who came before us – the discoverers, the inventors, the investors, the businessmen - who made our well-paying jobs possible.

Instead of Labor Day, we should celebrate Intellectual Labor Day.

Or, better yet, we should celebrate political and economic freedom—i.e., Capitalism – the social system of the United States of America. Capitalism unleashed the individual human mind. It is Capitalism that liberated the inventor, entrepreneur, businessman, and industrialist, who in turn made it possible for the American worker to have acquired the means to rise to middle class status and prosper. The labor movement fought for better working condiditions, shorter work weeks, and the like. But those victories couldn't have been possible without the tools of increased worker productivity and consumer products created by the inventor/entrepreneur/businessman/industrialist, who wouldn't have been possible without capitalism. The labor movement could not have been possible in any other era in human history. Capitalism made the labor movement possible.

It is Capitalism’s liberated human mind that from rude nature has delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.

Capitalism is what I will be quietly rejoicing as I enjoy my long weekend.

Happy Labor Day!!

Related Reading:

Atlas Shrugged—Ayn Rand

To Whom Does the American Worker Owe His Prowess?

Did Unions Create the Middle Class?

QUORA: 'How is becoming a billionaire even possible, chronologically?'

Don’t Forget to Celebrate Capital on Labor Day, Too

"Labor is ennobling because it’s an important source of such values as self-esteem, personal fulfillment, responsibility, accomplishment, and voluntary cooperation. It’s both a vehicle and an outlet for our talents and ambitions. Good parents instinctively teach their children that work is a virtue and a benefit, while idleness and laziness are to be avoided.

"But all of that could also be said of another vital ingredient in our standard of living—capital. Most of us would starve without it. Creating it and then deploying it to increase material wealth is ennobling just as much as labor is, and for the same reasons. The creator and user of capital is furthering his talents and ambitions in the process. And every parent who tells his child to mow the lawn hopes he’ll do it with a piece of capital equipment like a lawn mower instead of his teeth."

True. But never reverse cause and effect. Without labor -- especially the labor of the mind -- capital is useless. In fact, it doesn't exist.

For Public Unions, Partial Control of Pension Funds is Worse than the Current System

The New Jersey Star-Ledger is spot on in attacking a pension “reform” bill that would make the already corrupt public sector union pension funds worse. In Another gift to the unions, another pummeling for taxpayers, the Star-Ledger editorialized 

Our lawmakers believe this is another good time to play Russian Roulette with one of our six public pension plans, and lucky taxpayers get to spin the chamber.

They are advancing a bill that would hand the Police and Firemen's Retirement System (PFRS) over to the unions, giving them an unhealthy level of discretionary authority, including boosting their own benefits on a whim.

This lesson in cockeyed fiduciary responsibility comes from a provision that allows a new Board of Trustees - 12 members, with 7 union appointees - the power to raise the cost of living adjustment with 7-5 vote. Generally, the law prohibits increasing benefits in any pension system until it is funded at 80 percent, but this bill will erase that requirement just for PFRS - which is only funded at 64 percent.

"It's the same as giving a benefit enhancement," said Sen. Declan O'Scanlon (R-Monmouth). "It is simply irresponsible to give anyone unilateral control to enhance their own benefits when taxpayers have to pick up over 70% of the cost. To do so while also removing the 80-percent funding mandate is insanity. This will screw taxpayers. There is no delicate way to put it."

The same bill was shredded last May by Gov. Christie, who observed that the authority invested in the new board is like "handing PFRS a blank check." His former Treasurer, Andrew Sidamon-Eristof, was less generous: "It's demonstrably insane," he wrote last March, "to give public employees unqualified power. . . .and require that government employers (and taxpayers) pay the tab. Yet that's exactly what this bill does."

It’s nice to be on the same side of an issue as the Star-Ledger for a change. I left these comments:

“Let's clarify it for them: If the union members vote to boost their benefits - unilaterally - taxpayers get stuck with the bulk of the bill.”

Yes, this is insane. It’s worse than what we have now, with politicians promising benefits that pass the cost off to future taxpayers.

So here’s the solution: Give the unions the pension fund. All of it; the benefits, the funding, and responsibility for bad investment decisions. This is not just hypothetical. There is a real world model to look at. I know from personal experience. That’s the way it works for my private sector trade union, the plumbers and pipefitters union. 

We the membership decide how much of our total pay package, negotiated with the contractors, goes into the pension fund (as well as the health benefits fund, which the membership also controls). If we want higher benefits, we vote a lower take-home pay to fund it. If the fund’s investments tank, we either vote to add more money from our paychecks, or cut benefits, or hire a new investment management. We can’t go back to the contractors for more money. The total pay package is all there is. There is no other money to be had. We have a contract, transparent for all to see. To provide checks and balances and oversight, the board of trustees for the funds is made up of both union representatives and contractor reps.

And it works. You’d be surprised how responsible unions can be running their own funds when they actually run the funds from start to finish. The membership funds it 100%. I worked for 45 years (1967-2012) paying into the pension fund. I now collect a decent monthly income. I don’t claim to know all of the issues that must be resolved to pull off the transformation for the public sector unions. But we should look to the private sector model as the way to go. The half-measure discussed here looks to me to be worse than no reform.

Related Reading:

The Missing Ingredient in the Debate Over the Constitutional 'Fix' for NJ's Pension 'Crisis'

NJ’s Pension Funding Crisis and Public Tax Hypocrisy

End NJ's Public Pension Corruption Once and For All

End NJ's Public Pension Corruption Once and For All–Replies and Responses

A Real Long-Term Solution to New Jersey’s Public Pension Mess

This Labor Day, Celebrate Intellectual Labor

The United States Department of Labor, speaking on The History of Labor Day, had this to say on its website:

Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those “who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.”

Really? There is no doubt about what is meant here. McGuire was referring to people who “work with their hands”. Is that what built America? Physical labor has existed since time immemorial. What changed in the last two hundred + years that suddenly endowed the American worker with the means to produce “all the grandeur we behold” out of raw, “rude” nature? (Note the word “all”).

The American worker has, indeed, contributed significantly to the American Economic juggernaut. But, it was not because of his labor, as such. It was because of his intellectual mastery of the theoretical and material tools of production provided to him, that vastly increased the value of his labor.

Physical labor, as such, has very little value. Slaves can perform it. So can mules pulling hand plows.

Consider my trade, plumbing. If my job is fundamentally physical labor, then any able-bodied person off of the street can wander onto any construction job site and robotically perform the task of installing plumbing systems. He can simply be told: “Run this pipe from here to there”, and it will get done. He has the same muscles and bones, nerves and guts that I have, after all.

That, of course, could never be the case. Performing my task (or any construction trade) requires reliance on previously acquired theoretical knowledge, on-the-job apprenticeship training, the mastery of the tools, materials, and procedures of the trade, and years of learning experience. This is to say nothing of the continuing education that new materials and technologies require of me.

My job is knowledge-based. All modern jobs are, to varying extent. How did that knowledge become imbued in my brain? - by my choice to expend the intellectual effort to acquire it. Even the muscular physical motions my job requires had to be learned by a conscious mental effort that led to the appropriate neurological connections.

Do you still think mere labor built this country?

The idea that a laborer “works with his hands” is only superficially true. What directs the motions of his hands? It is his focussed, reasoning mind – if he is a motivated worker who strives to be the best that he can be at his chosen occupation. If not, then that worker is a mere drone.

And that gets directly to the point. The celebration of “labor” as a holiday implies that mindless worker. Labor Day ignores the intellectual root of modern, productive labor. It ignores the intellectual labor of the inventor and entrepreneur that created the worker’s job to begin with, and the intellectual labor that the competent worker must expend to learn to perform his job.

Human knowledge is fleeting, but for the grace of those who came before us and chose to acquire it and pass it on. Knowledge can not be passed on from person to person or generation to generation innately. No one is born with previously discovered knowledge, but rather with a mind that is tabula rasa – a blank slate. To celebrate “all the grandeur we behold”, it is to the discoverer and the acquirers of knowledge that we must pay initial gratitude to. The worker, by learning the skills he needs to perform his job, plays his role in keeping that knowledge train going.

This does not, however, mean that labor is inconsequential. Theoretical knowledge in and of itself has little value, unless and until it is placed into the service of man’s living requirements. The process of turning knowledge into the material values humans need to live and to flourish is dependent upon the contributions of many economic players. The value of each player’s contribution to this productive process varies and is dependent upon many factors. But all through that process – from the discoverer of new knowledge to the final material product put together by the worker – the value added represents, at root, the application of the mind.

“[W]hen you live in a rational society, where men are free to trade, you receive an incalculable bonus: the material value of your work is determined not only by your effort, but by the effort of the best productive minds who exist in the world around you.

“When you work in a modern factory, you are paid, not only for your labor, but for all the productive genius which has made that factory possible: for the work of the industrialist who built it, for the work of the investor who saved the money to risk on the untried and the new, for the work of the engineer who designed the machines of which you are pushing the levers, for the work of the inventor who created the product which you spend your time on making, for the work of the scientist who discovered the laws that went into the making of that product, for the work of the philosopher who taught men how to think…” (Page 1064)

Labor Day, according to the DOL, was created in 1882. That was the heyday of Karl Marx’s rise to prominence among the American intellectual elite. Marx was the theoretician of “Dialectical Materialism”, the idea that man’s consciousness – his spirit, his intellect, ability, and logic – plays at best a minimal role in the production process. Human beings, according to Marx, are conditioned by the physical world around them, including the means of production like tools and factories, which just happened into existence. Our modern, complex, and advanced industrial society is the product of mindless, conditioned muscular movements, according to Marx (and others). It is owing to the Marxist theory of the mind – i.e., spiritual values - as of little consequence that gave rise to the myth that labor and those that perform it are the primary engines of economic progress.

Labor Day, whether one knows or wants to admit it or not, is an outgrowth of Marxism and the “labor theory of economic value” that so enamored late 19th century American intellectuals.

The DOL concludes its Labor Day salute as follows:

"It is appropriate … that the nation pay tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation's strength, freedom, and leadership — the American worker."

Not quite. Instead, we should pay tribute to the creator of the American worker.

This Labor Day, we should celebrate not workers, but those who made our jobs and prosperity possible. This country was not built by physical labor. It was built by intellectual labor applied to physical labor under a system of individual rights that allowed everyone the freedom to think and, above all, to act on his thinking. Instead of patting ourselves on the back for our labor, we “workers” should reflect on the mental efforts that we had to expend in order to acquire the previously discovered knowledge that makes it possible to perform our jobs. We should stop selling ourselves short. Labor Day is an insult to the American Worker.

More importantly, we should give silent thanks to all of those intellectual “laborers” who came before us – the discoverers, the inventors, the investors, the businessmen - who made our well-paying jobs possible.

Instead of Labor Day, we should celebrate Intellectual Labor Day.

Or, better yet, we should celebrate political and economic freedom—i.e., Capitalism – the social system of the United States of America. Capitalism unleashed the individual human mind. It is Capitalism that liberated the inventor, entrepreneur, businessman, and industrialist, who in turn made it possible for the American worker to have acquired the means to rise to middle class status and prosper. The labor movement fought for better working condiditions, shorter work weeks, and the like. But those victories couldn't have been possible without the tools of increased worker productivity and consumer products created by the inventor/entrepreneur/businessman/industrialist, who wouldn't have been possible without capitalism. The labor movement could not have been possible in any other era in human history. Capitalism made the labor movement possible.

It is Capitalism’s liberated human mind that from rude nature has delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.

Capitalism is what I will be quietly rejoicing as I enjoy my long weekend.

Happy Labor Day!!

Related Reading:

Atlas Shrugged—Ayn Rand

To Whom Does the American Worker Owe His Prowess?

Did Unions Create the Middle Class?

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