First off, with very few exceptions, unpaid internships are immoral and disgusting. Any business, especially a multi-million dollar tech behemoth, that justifies not paying interns is evil. But because the “good guys” lost the plot decades ago (by shying away from unions, by courting corporate donations, by being privileged and unaffected, by not understanding how narrative works), this is not only accepted as legit, it’s seen as good business.
And it mirrors what’s been happening not only in media and the broader corporate world, but even within the ostensible “good guy” culture of our literary industry, where gatekeepers (all well-remunerated, all in relatively stable perches of stability) make few sacrifices even as they do less for authors and the communities that support them. For these folks to tolerate free labor is an affront, and they need to be called out, and those of us with some creative skin in the game need to connect the dots (or at least attempt to do so in ways that don’t stop at useless slogans and feel-good solidarity with words not actions), helping change things from the inside.
Speaking of Narrative with a capital-N, the bad guys have kept it simple, effectively convincing many Americans to believe any taxation is bad (and that obscenely wealthy shouldn’t have to pay any taxes at all), the free market is objective and fair in both theory and practice, regulation is onerous, and if you hustle you’ll succeed (see George Carlin on the American Dream Myth). Oh, and government is bad (unless a natural disaster hits your town, but don’t talk about climate change even as the government-employed, tax-funded workers are pulling you into the boat). An unfettered and unregulated Free Market Machine allows scumbag CEOs to endorse free internships, the adjunct model at universities to proliferate (funny, tuition has skyrocketed in recent decades and there are less professors getting hired with benefits, where in the world is all that money going?), grade school teachers buying their own classroom supplies, and exploited blue collar workers voting against the same universal health care that’s standard in every other thriving country (while protesting that vaccines are proof that Big Pharma is evil).
I recommend this brilliant and timely piece (ha! and it was written a quarter-century ago!!) and also encourage anyone who reads it to share and consider subscribing to The Baffler, a true independent outlet and a model for how journalism can (and should) work in our brave new world. Also: help support non-profits and get in the game; there are very wealthy interests working around the clock while we sleep: they’ve already amassed uncountable profits—their ultimate goal is apathy. Without resistance, the pillaging will continue.
Money quote (the entire piece is essential):
“The glamour industries enjoy a tremendous surplus of labor. There are more people who want media jobs than can be employed. Therefore labor is cheap, as demonstrated by the industry’s already low salaries ($18,000 a year for an editorial assistant is not uncommon, which is about $9 dollars an hour, assuming the most optimistic work schedule possible). Left to its own devices, a rational market with surplus labor will bid wages down almost to the point where no one will accept a job. If it can, a market will bid the wages all the way down to zero, as long as someone, anyone, will do the work, for whatever real or imagined benefit……Businesses, obviously, have a real, bottom-line incentive to encourage the trend toward labor that is not only free, but without any type of obligation whatsoever. In other words, interns are restructuring the labor market.”
