20 April 1995 "What is worker" has drawn a lot of comments and clarifications. Gil Skillman said, "a worker is someone who expends socially productive labor in a commodity-producing enterprise." Robert Peter Burns said, "anyone who has to rely on paid employment." Peter Dorman said, "a worker in a capitalist economy is an employee of an enterprise." Jim Divine said, "a worker . . . [is] 'direct producer' and might not be a proletarian but a slave or serf or whatever...." Carl Dassbach said, "A worker is the antithesis of an owner." It seems to me the last one is the clearest and the shortest definition. A worker who sells his (her) labor power for living. Anyone who sweats for living, sell labor power for wage. Both productive and unproductive laborer is a worker. The only qualification is that worker only exists in capitalism, because labor power is commodity only in capitalism and nowhere else (slavery, feudalism, and communist utopia included). Therefore we cannot define worker in other systems where work for living is not imposed on the person. "work for living" in exchange for wage is imposed in capitalism, because worker is not owner and therefore has to work. And owner who owns the jobs has the power to impose work on worker. The definition is very clear here from the Great Plains. Here we see no hills and valleys for hundreds of miles, no smoke or fog. The air is pristine clear, and nothing like in East or West Coasts or elsewhere. Fikret Ceyhun Dept. of Economics Univ. of North Dakota e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
