Seven days a week...

I first heard about the seven days workday when Jonathan T. visited Stockholm in 2001.  He told us Swedes that the six days workweek they had before in the USA had been expanded to seven days of work a week. "The organization in USA is lacking money and is in war", he told us.

The year after there was a policy shift. Older members were to work seven days a week, while LYM (the youngsters) were to work six days and "study" LaRouchian litterature on the seventh day. The so called "reading day"...

When I visited USA in 2003 the organization had changed its policy a bit more. Now the boomers were commanded to work six and a half days a week, twelve hours or more a day! "We are in war, are lacking funds, and need to fight for the civilization", people in the USA told me. Not all liked to work this much but they did it anyhow "because the organization is in a war"... 

Some would secretly think: "If only Lyn knew... He could not have been the person behind this madness!" I was one of them...

When I later in November 2003 met Helga I asked her about this policy. She told me straightforward that Lyndon LaRouche had ordered the seven days workday that the US organization had for two years, and had ordered the six and a half day workday in 2002/2003.

Lousy economical method...

The organization has from the beginning used laborintensive methods. 

The members has worked as hell, from early morning to late evening for nothing since the 70s. six or seven days a week. In the 90s this was loosened a bit but around 2000 the order was once more: work seven days of work!

There is something very wrong with this. Modern economic thought, including the thoughts favourites of LaRouche like Friedrich List and Henry Carey had, has always emphasized that laborintensive methods are dehumanizing and nonprofitable. Around 1900 there was a great debate about this. Some said that workers should work 12 to 14 hours a day. Others said that the society AS WELL AS THE CAPITALISTS THAT OWN THE INDUSTRIES, woulr gain more from a ten hour workday!

That is a real "paradox", to use a LaRouchian word! How is it that the society and companies earned more from a eight och nine hour workday five days a week, than from letting their workers work 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week?

With the use of machinery, and with the introduction sparetime for the relaxation and development of the worker, laborintensive workmodes were eposed as very unprofitable. The comapnies could earn more when the workers were happy and had relaxed a bit. Quite a paradox!

Only for short periods of time could a company earn as much from laborintensive methods in the long run, as from more capital intensive methods!

So the laborintensive methods of LaRouche are quite lousy from an economical perspective...

Lousy military tactics

But could not the insane workscedule of the organization be justified by the myth that "we are in war"...  I.e: "The civilization is close to collapse and LaRouche and the movement is the only hope for mankind, we need to work as hell NOW, otherwise it will be too late..."

I believed that this justified the workscedule, until I studied military history and realized that this was worng.

In november 2003 I asked Helga about it... I said: "but all competent military generals and commanders in the history has tried to let their troops rest as much as possible. Battle fatigue always occur if the soldiers are forced to fight every day for hours and hours and that always make the soldiers fight less efficient." To this Helga answered: "But Lyn is our general, you would not say that he is a bad commander, or? He decided about the seven days week!"

That moment I knew that all I had believed about Helga and Lyndon was wrong. They were not even good commanders in war.

I repeat: only a LOUSY general would let their troops fight like the general LaRouche and his "subcommendante" Helga lets their troops fight! And this is proovable from history!

I studied recently the case of the Finnish winterwar against the russians in 1939/1940. In the end the finns lost because they had no replacements and the Finnish soldiers almost never got to take a couple of days off to rest! The troops that fought best were those were the officers had succeeded to let their tropps take some days off, despite the war!

Madness

Martin Luther King, another favourite that often is quoted by the LaRouchian leadership to justify the insane works-scedule of the members, would have been horrified if he had lived to see what his name was used for. I remember reading a thing he wrote to a fellow member of the civil rights movement. He said something like this: "Dont forget to rest and take the time to enjoy life. Take the time to be with your family and your kids. Take care of your parents. Go for a ride next sunday afternoon and visit the forrest. Yes, we are in a desperate fight for our freedom. But or freedom is not won if those that fight for freedom are to exhausted. Even if you dont see it youself, you are not as efficient if you dont rest on sunday as if you work for the civil rights cause on a sunday too, besides visiting the churc. Rest my friend!"

the seven days workday for members in the USA has always been the main proof for me that LaRouche is mad!

Not even the slave owners of the confederacy forced their slaves work as much as LaRouche forces his "slaves" to work!

In 2003 I asked myself: do I want a person that commands his "troops" to work laborintensive, sevcen days a week, to influence world politics, or lead the USA. 

My answer was no!

It still is!

What is your answer to that question?

/T