i found this article demonstrative...Eva THE PEOPLE MARCH 1999 VOL. 108 NO. 12 PROFITING FROM MAYHEM BY KEN BOETTCHER A half-page advertisement that recently ran in THE NEW YORK TIMES is a testament to the debilitating nature of work under capitalism and the stress, anxiety and anger that pervades the workplace and society at large under that system. It was an ad for the security services firm, Guardsmark, that warned of the dangers of workplace violence. Four lines of display type were superimposed over a photograph depicting the evacuation of an office building, presumably during or after an incident of workplace violence. "A loyal employee for 22 years," said the first line. "Last month he was laid off," said the next. "This morning he came back," said the next. "No one was ready for him," said the last. Elsewhere, the ad reinforced Guardsmark's point. "Incidents of workplace violence like this can happen anywhere, anytime. Even the best run companies can be victimized by it. If you don't think your company is vulnerable, think again: workplace violence costs American business billions of dollars annually....If you want the best protection for your employees, your visitors and your shareholders, depend on Guardsmark." There's little wonder that Guardsmark should find it useful to use the threat of workplace violence to sell its services. Many such companies do, if a random sampling of security firms offering their services over the Internet is any indication. Fear of workplace violence is not entirely misplaced, though the repressive "solutions" such firms generally offer hold little promise of stemming the growing phenomenon of workplace violence. According to a June 1997 report on "Violence in the Workplace" available from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), "an average of 20 workers are murdered each week in the United States." Further, "...an estimated 1 million workers--18,000 per week--are victims of nonfatal workplace assaults each year." As the report put it, "Homicide is the second leading cause of death on the job, second only to motor vehicle crashes." Not all of this violence is committed by employees. In fact, the portion committed by employees or former employees is about 30 percent, according to the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company. Perhaps more telling is that, according to information provided at www.workplace-violence.com by a firm called Critical Incident Associates, in 95 percent of all workplace violence incidents, the perpetrator is "a socially isolated loner, who is either a disgruntled employee, an angry client, a sexual harasser, an irate spouse or a jilted would-be lover of one of your employees." If a major key to workplace violence is that its perpetrators are "socially isolated loners," then the real wonder is that there is not more workplace violence. For the social environment in which we live--a general social atmosphere often described as the "cold, cruel world"--could hardly be constructed to more efficiently produce "socially isolated loners." Psychologists try to treat such individuals as having "personal problems" that each must cope with alone. However, an individual's "personal problem" in feeling isolated or alienated from other people is in reality a social problem, with its roots in the capitalist system and the culture it engenders. Under such atrocious social conditions, the real wonder is that there are as many reasonably well-adjusted human beings as there are. That there are some "socially isolated loners" who engage in violence at the workplace--or elsewhere--should surprise no one who understands the nature of the society in which we live. Security services like Guardsmark generally prescribe complicated identification procedures, invasive searches, drug testing, Orwellian surveillance or other schemes to curb workplace violence--measures likely to add to the anxiety and stress of work under capitalism. But the only measure that can actually end workplace violence is to end the violence done to workers by the capitalist social system by abolishing capitalism itself. ----- End of forwarded message from Ken Boettcher -----
