Reading Notes

The People of the Abyss 
by Jack London

Project Gutenberg edition

"In a civilisation frankly materialistic and based upon property, not soul, it is inevitable that property shall be exalted over soul, that crimes against property shall be considered far more serious than crimes against the person."

"the young girl who takes a lodging under the pretence that she has work commits so dangerous an offence, that, were she not severely punished, she and her kind might bring the whole fabric of property clattering to the ground."

"It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the workers themselves, but is determined by the demand for labour. If three men seek one position, the most efficient man will get it. The other two, no matter how capable they may be, will none the less be inefficients."

Likewise no matter how incompetent the higher ups are, they dont need to actually improve their stock, just simply make a show of being more 'qualified' than others. Its not a value based assessment. It is an awards based sham of a meritocracy that is self fulfilling. The more honors and recognition you seize or swindle, the more prestigious are your affiliations, the more merit is forthcoming by virtue of association.

"On the other hand, conditions remaining constant and all the workers doubling their efficiency, there would still be as many inefficients, though each inefficient were twice as capable as he had been and more capable than many of the efficients had previously been."

"as many men as are in excess of work will be inefficients, and as inefficients they are doomed to lingering and painful destruction. It shall be the aim of future chapters to show, by their work and manner of living, not only how the inefficients are weeded out and destroyed, but to show how inefficients are being constantly and wantonly created by the forces of industrial society as it exists to-day."

The richest will never be 'inefficients' no matter how incompetent, base and vulgar in character or morals they are. Because their birthright is a systematic acquiring of awards, prestige, and qualifications which are thrust upon their name, more so than earned in open and level comparison. This birthright will outshine any of the common lot of lower class, and justify one of their own preferentially awarding a pre-selected seat among the favored.

The privileged compete with attachments to their name, not with naked capabilities. Its not what you do, its where you get into. Its being among the best skiiers, when only the wealthy can afford to ski. Its a prestigious summer exchange study in Europe, for whose parents can afford to send them abroad to party, drink, and sightsee. Its writing an essay of all the 'life changing', 'leadership' moments that the steady accumulation of getting in to a status program to get into the next status program provides.

Meanwhile your 'less competitive' inferiors are struggling to see where their minimum wage hours at Walmart are accepted as 'valuable experience' and an 'honor' besides a equally dead end job at another retail store. Having parents who go in and out of jail, rehab, and pregnancy.

Employment for upper class is not so much doing a job, as much as maintaining class order. Fulfilling the self prophecy that the people who have nice things are those with the most honors, merits, and leadership. Its perpetuating the lie that keeps the rest of the lower working scum in line waiting to enter the promised land of American dreams.

The lie is that an individual's value leads into upper class, that the door is open to anyone with merit, that this country rewards and promotes its best individuals to the top and provides them a life of security, wealth, and prosperity. That it is not a system of the privileged begetting privilege, while the rest are made to work and claw over each other for a job to grow the pockets of the wealthy.

"Where you would not have your own babe live, and develop, and gather to itself knowledge of life and the things of life, is not a fit place for the babes of other men to live, and develop, and gather to themselves knowledge of life and the things of life. It is a simple thing, this Golden Rule, and all that is required. Political economy and the survival of the fittest can go hang if they say otherwise. What is not good enough for you is not good enough for other men, and there's no more to be said."

"To make matters worse, the men of the Ghetto are the men who are left--a deteriorated stock, left to undergo still further deterioration. For a hundred and fifty years, at least, they have been drained of their best. The strong men, the men of pluck, initiative, and ambition, have been faring forth to the fresher and freer portions of the globe, to make new lands and nations. Those who are lacking, the weak of heart and head and hand, as well as the rotten and hopeless, have remained to carry on the breed. And year by year, in turn, the best they breed are taken from them. Wherever a man of vigour and stature manages to grow up, he is haled forthwith into the army. A soldier, as Bernard Shaw has said, "ostensibly a heroic and patriotic defender of his country, is really an unfortunate man driven by destitution to offer himself as food for powder for the sake of regular rations, shelter, and clothing."

Frederick Harrison: "To me, at least, it would be enough to condemn modern society as hardly an advance on slavery or serfdom, if the permanent condition of industry were to be that which we behold, that ninety per cent. of the actual producers of wealth have no home that they can call their own beyond the end of the week; have no bit of soil, or so much as a room that belongs to them; have nothing of value of any kind, except as much old furniture as will go into a cart; have the precarious chance of weekly wages, which barely suffice to keep them in health; are housed, for the most part, in places that no man thinks fit for his horse; are separated by so narrow a margin from destitution that a month of bad trade, sickness, or unexpected loss brings them face to face with hunger and pauperism"

"The pavement folk are noisy, voluble, high- strung, excitable--when they are yet young. As they grow older they become steeped and stupefied in beer. When they have nothing else to do, they ruminate as a cow ruminates. They are to be met with everywhere, standing on curbs and corners, and staring into vacancy. Watch one of them. He will stand there, motionless, for hours, and when you go away you will leave him still staring into vacancy. It is most absorbing. He has no money for beer, and his lair is only for sleeping purposes, so what else remains for him to do? He has already solved the mysteries of girl's love, and wife's love, and child's love, and found them delusions and shams, vain and fleeting as dew-drops, quick-vanishing before the ferocious facts of life."