Sublime

In July 1791, the Cherokees reluctantly signed the Treaty of Holston, agreeing to abandon any claims to land on which the Franklin settlements sat in return for an annual annuity of $100,000 from the federal government.

This transfer constitutes a major feature of the capitalist “mode of production”: surplus value is extracted from labor, which creates both an “exploitation” of the labor force and an “alienation” of the workers from their labor.

To labor under capitalism is to enter negotiations between the arbitrary constructions of money and time. It is to be asked: How much is 60 minutes of survival worth to you? And to answer, For how long must I labor to earn the right to survive?

If he was in fact a guinea pig for industry while they were cashing life-changing checks, then it followed that the landowners were making that money at the cost of someone’s health.