Friday Tunes: Money for Nothing

This week’s installment of labour themes in popular culture is Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing” (suggestion courtesy of my colleague Jason Foster). The song is written from the perspective of an apparently real New York appliance-store worker who was watching music videos and contrasting the life of rock stars with everyday workers. 

Many of the lyrics are based upon the worker’s actual comments on the videos. Front and centre in the lyrics is the worker’s jealousy at the relative ease of the rock stars' lives: get up late, plays some music and watch the cash roll in:

Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and chicks for free

This is contrasted with the worker’s own experience of (hard) work:

We gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these colour TV's

There is an interesting class analysis here: there are different segments of the working class and their different levels of success create natural fissures that can be exploited by capital to impede class solidarity. I think the interesting part of the lyrics is how the appliance worker blames himself for his lack of labour market success.

I shoulda learned to play the guitar
I shoulda learned to play them drums

Internalizing failure can be a productive strategy if one’s failure is caused by factors within one’s control. If so, then working harder or making different choices is a good path forward. My guess here (recognizing that my data is a rock song and a cartoon…), though, is that the worker’s labour market prospects were constrained (although not necessarily perfectly determined) from the get-go based upon his talents and the small demand for rock stars.

Now sure, there are many examples of hard working bands beating the odds to find success (which is why this is a musical archetype). But I’d guess these success stories are dramatically outnumbered by musicians that tried and failed and then got so-called real jobs pushing appliances.

This brings me around to the fight for a $15 minimum-wage movement. There are lots of social justice arguments for increasing the minimum wage. A fairly pragmatic one is that our society requires a large cadre of workers to do service-sector work. Since we require this work to be done and many of us will spend our lives doing such work, we ought to establish a minimum wage that provides a decent living. 

In theory, the labour market should correct itself when wages get too low because workers will withdraw from work or will seek work elsewhere. Yet workers’ need to put food on the table and their limited access to other work means the labour market does not operate freely. This creates conditions ripe for exploitation, which is why we developed minimum wages in the first place.

I’ve embedded the original video (even though there are better versions of the song) because the video really brings out the perspective of the putative narrator.



Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and chicks for free
Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb
Maybe get a blister on your little finger
Maybe get a blister on your thumb

[chorus]

We gotta install microwave ovens
Custom kitchen deliveries
We gotta move these refrigerators
We gotta move these colour TV's

See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup
Yeah buddy that's his own hair
That little faggot got his own jet airplane
That little faggot he's a millionaire

[chorus]

I shoulda learned to play the guitar
I shoulda learned to play them drums
Look at that mama, she got it stickin' in the camera
Man we could have some fun

And he's up there, what's that? Hawaiian noises?
Bangin' on the bongoes like a chimpanzee
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Get your money for nothin' get your chicks for free

[chorus]

Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it
You play the guitar on the MTV
That ain't workin' that's the way you do it
Money for nothin' and your chicks for free
Money for nothin' and chicks for free

-- Bob Barnetson