Worry and Monotony and Unsatisfied Longings

Capitalism and classism go hand in hand, and these are not new problems.

This excerpt is from Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys, ©1939:

I go into the other room, this time without knocking.  Salvatini has gone.  Mr Blank is still writing letters.  Is he making dates with all the girls he knows in Paris?  I bet that's what he's doing.

He looks at me with distaste.  Plat du jour-- boiled eyes, served cold…

Well, let's argue this out, Mr Blank.  You, who represent Society, have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month.  That's my market value, for I am an inefficient member of Society, slow in the uptake, uncertain, slightly damaged in the fray, there's no denying it.  So you have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month, to lodge me in a small, dark, room, to clothe me shabbily, to harass me with worry and monotony and unsatisfied longings till you get me to the point when I blush at a look, cry at a word.  We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky-- and it would be so much less fun if it were.  Isn't it so, Mr Blank?  There must be the dark background to show up the bright colours.  Some must cry so that the others may be able to laugh more heartily.  Sacrifices are necessary…  Let's say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off.  But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple-- no, that I think you haven't got.  And that's the right you hold most dearly, isn't it?  You must be able to despise the people you exploit.  But I wish you a lot of trouble, Mr Blank, and just to start off with, your damned shop's going bust.  Alleluia!  Did I say all this?  If course I didn't.  I didn't even think it.

I say that I'm ill and want to go.

And that reminded me of this:

“It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.”  ~Gore Vidal