The quote about "The Wrestler" is really powerful:
> Both Randy and Cassidy live on the fringes of society: they are employed in sectors which are regularly mocked and derided, and their personal lives, much like their physical bodies, are ravaged by scars … They have no means of income, no means of survival, nothing to sell but their bodies and the labour these bodies can produce. And so they sell them, for decades, and when their bodies are exhausted they are left in poverty.
Makes me think about all the times I've heard people say that we should legalize prostitution, or selling organs, or getting money for adoptions, etc.
That's not an accurate description of the movie. In the movie, it is made clear that Randy is purposefully limiting work at his day job to make time for his unprofitable, dangerous, declining wrestling career. The stripper (Pam) is leaving that business because she's getting older, and can't attract clients. In terms of money, they'd both be better off without their exciting "show biz" work.
But how far do you stretch this? The same argument could be made for many types of manual labor and blue-collar work. I would argue even prostitution and selling organs are far apart on the spectrum.
You can stretch this quite far, but that's besides the point. Just because it's hard to draw a line doesn't mean that we can't recognize particularly debasing forms of "voluntary" labor.
The evidence so far suggests that no, we can't recognise particularly debasing forms of "voluntary" labour. For example, prostitution gets almost all the criticism, despite being one of the few jobs that lets workers can seize control of their own working conditions and avoid the kind of capitalist abuses this article talks about. Imagine what it would take for someone to gain control of almost all prostitution in the United States, as the WWE did with pro wrestling.
(In fact, I can even remember someone arguing in a previous HN discussion that because minimum-wage work was so bad, anyone who chose prostitution as an alternative to it was coerced and therefore we should outlaw prostitution - rather than the abusive minimum-wage work.)
> despite being one of the few jobs that lets workers can seize control of their own working conditions and avoid the kind of capitalist abuses this article talks about.
The vast majority of prostitutes can no more choose their own working conditions than any other working stiff. Pushed out onto the streets by poverty, prey to sociopathic men, the average prostitute is mired in a dangerous, destructive, difficult-to-escape lifestyle that destroys her health and vitality.
The recent move towards Internet-enabled prostitution that empowers the working girl is very much an aberration. For an introduction to this topic, pick up Iceberg Slim's Pimp.
So sex work is more debasing than cleaning toilets for a wage that wouldn't feed a 5 year old? I think we should draw a line at making arguments with scare quotes.
> Both Randy and Cassidy live on the fringes of society: they are employed in sectors which are regularly mocked and derided, and their personal lives, much like their physical bodies, are ravaged by scars … They have no means of income, no means of survival, nothing to sell but their bodies and the labour these bodies can produce. And so they sell them, for decades, and when their bodies are exhausted they are left in poverty.
Makes me think about all the times I've heard people say that we should legalize prostitution, or selling organs, or getting money for adoptions, etc.