Labour & Pop Culture: And we thought the nation state was a bad idea

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is Propagandhi’s 1995 song “And we thought the nation state was a bad idea”. This is a thrashy (and rather preachy) song that I don’t much care for musically. But the lyrics highlight how bad employment is a consequence of the political economy.

Born, hired, disposed.
Where that job lands, everybody knows.
You can tell by the smile on the CEO,
Environmental restraints are about to go. 

You can bet laws will be set
To ensure the benefit
Of unrestricted labour laws,
Kept in place by displaced government death squads.

These verses highlight that allowing (and indeed facilitating) employers to make decisions that negatively affect workers and the environment is a choice by the state. Different economic and political decisions would yield very different workplaces.

That we have the rather unjust laws that we have suggests collusion (of some kind) between corporate and governmental actors to the detriment of the public interest. The consequences of this arrangement are covered up by corporate media.

Overall, this is fairly sharp critique of the political economy of western democracies. In a weird coincidence, Propagandhi will be playing the Starlite Room in Edmonton on February 9th.



"Publicly subsidized! Privately profitable!"
The anthem of the upper-tier, puppeteer untouchable.
Focus a moment, nod in approval,
Bury our heads back in the bar-codes of these neo-colonials.

Our former nemesis, the romance of the nation state,
Now plays fundraiser for a new brand of power-concentrate.
Try again, but now we're confused; what is "class war"?
Is this class war? Yes, this is class war.

And I'm just a kid.
I can't believe I gotta worry about this kind of shit.
What a stupid world.

And it's beautiful,
No regard for principle.
What a stupid world.

Born, hired, disposed.
Where that job lands, everybody knows.
You can tell by the smile on the CEO,
Environmental restraints are about to go.

You can bet laws will be set
To ensure the benefit
Of unrestricted labour laws,
Kept in place by displaced government death squads.

They own us.
They own us.
Produce us.
Consume us.

They own us.
They own us.
Produce us.
Consume us.

Can you fucking believe?
What a stupid world.

Fuck this bullshit display of class-loyalties.
The media and "our" leaders wrap it all up in a flag, shit-rag, hooray.

-- Bob Barnetson