Bitcoin Gives Power Back to People – Bitcoin Magazine
This is an opinion piece by Robert Hall, a content creator and small business owner.
Organized labor empowered people to fight big business and secure their workplace rights. Bitcoin gives power back to the people to protect these rights once and for all.
Labor Day is usually a time to relax with friends and family, grill some hot dogs, and enjoy some much-needed downtime before the holiday season kicks in. Although this has come to represent the modern meaning of Labor Day, its origins date back more than a century.
The first state to recognize Labor Day as a holiday was Oregon. The first bill was passed on February 21, 1887. By the end of 1894, 23 states had adopted the holiday and Congress made it a federally recognized holiday that same year.
Organized labor has been central to creating the working environments we have today. Workers and workers’ rights were not respected during the height of the Industrial Revolution. Life as a worker in this era was hell. How would you work 12-hour days, seven days a week and barely make it? These are the conditions many of your ancestors worked under to provide for their families.
Children as young as five were forced to work to feed their families. Child labor is now considered inhumane, but they just called it normal back then. In addition to working long hours, working conditions were dangerous and business owners could care less about your health and well-being.
Years of work like this left people tired, bored and ready to rebel – not so different from what we have today, right? Back then workers took to the streets and were sometimes killed protesting for their rights as human beings not to be exploited by the moneyed elite.
“The Haymarket Affair” was a case where people were killed. Seven police officers and four civilians were killed when police tried to break up a pro-labor rally in Chicago.
Blood was shed to give us what we take for granted. Do you only like to work 8 hours a day? You have organized labor to thank for that. Do you like to relax at the weekend? You have the trade unions to thank for that too. Do you have health insurance through your employer? You can also thank organized labour.
We have to give credit where it’s due. Without the efforts of the labor movement, where would America be right now? Are you languishing without a chance to live a good life? I take a hard pass on it. We are not meant to work ourselves to the bone and die. The credit-based money system and the incentive to exploit people created miserable working conditions before organized labor took root.
Unions tend to get a bad rap because of the partisan media and how they are portrayed to the wider public. It appears to be working as union membership has declined from a peak of 20 percent of the workforce (17 million people) to 14 million in 2021 (10.3).
Unions no longer have the power they once had to improve the working environment and increase workers’ wages. This role has largely been shifted to state and local government. With this shift came a shift in the concentration of union membership. Employees in the public sector have the highest proportion of trade unions at 33.9 per cent. This rate is five times higher than the rate of workers in the private sector, which stands at 6 percent.
The departure of unions from the private sector has left workers to fend for themselves against predatory corporate conglomerates who push their employees to the limit. Employee burnout is a genuine phenomenon, and workers are quitting in droves. The term “great resignation” did not come out of nowhere.
Officials and workers cannot escape the crushing hamster wheel created by fiat money. The very people we depend on to take care of us are under enormous pressure. Fourteen percent of doctors reported taking drugs or drinking at work to cope with burnout and PTSD from the pandemic. We’re in serious trouble, folks.
The root of this problem is credit based money and the need for central banks to inflate the currency. It is inflation that makes companies and people run faster on the hamster wheel until we reach a breaking point. How can workers throw a wrench into the hamster wheel and make it stop once and for all?
Bitcoin gives power back to the people
Bitcoin is the best tool to financially empower all workers in the US and the world. Bitcoin gives back the energy the world’s central banks stole from you. Bitcoin allows you to make your own financial decision without government interference.
Bitcoin allows you to plan for the future without fear that your hard-earned wealth will melt away at the whims of a faceless banker in a smoky room somewhere. Bitcoin takes away that power once and for all.
Unions on a Bitcoin standard will still be needed to ensure that workers’ rights are fought for and protected. Unions would no longer need to negotiate wages as vigorously as they have in the past, because inflation would no longer be a scourge that eats away at union members’ wages.
With deflationary money, goods and services will become cheaper, not more expensive. The quality of life will increase dramatically along with good benefits. Workers will demand to be paid in rates when the wider public recognizes this basic truth.
Give back to the people by adopting a Bitcoin standard in your life. Lead by example and watch others follow you.
This is a guest post by Robert Hall. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc. or Bitcoin Magazine.
