"Work, Not Wages"

Peter set much store on labor as a prime requisite for a new order. "Work, not wages." That was an I.W.W. slogan and a Communist slogan too, and Peter liked it. During the days of the depression the Communists and our Catholic Workers often collided in street demonstrations. DOWN WITH CHIANG KAI-SHEK! said one of their posters, when we were demonstrating against evictions. WORK, NOT WAGES was another picket sign, when what the Communists were demanding was more relief, unemployment insurance, and every other benefit they could get from the state. Packed in that one tight little phrase is all the dynamite of revolution. Men wanted work more than they wanted bread, and they wanted to be responsible for their work, which meant ownership.--Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness, pg. 225-226