The first few scenes in Metropolis show the working classes at the moment of their shift change on the Machine. The shabby black coveralls sagging on the human frames that render them indistinctly craven—one phalanx shuffles off while the next shuffles in.

But the sons of the ones profiting from these wretches are up in the light, healthy and robust. Naturally, one son is inspired to descend into the depth to find out who is paying the cost of his privilege.

With him, we see the men working on the machine. They are stacked in alcoves up and down the sheer face of the machine, bouncing off their walls, lifting, bowing, turning wheels and pulling levers.

But when the hero rushes to his father to confront him about these horrible conditions, he bursts in on his father in his office.

The men in the office are actively hunching over their desks, and bobbing up and down to see and compare the numbers scrolling on the wall. Their clean and well tailored suits are not distinct enough to really tell them apart.

The movie is an extremely unsubtle call to leave behind amoral capitalism for a kinder more humane approach to industry.

It’s a really old movie. Silent, even.

It’s quaint, because work doesn’t look like that anymore. I guess maybe it used to, back when men lined up next to a machine for their 8 hour (if they were union) shift.

But my job looks more like the guys in the suit next to the ticker tape walls. Communism didn’t really win, but this is the face of capitalism I see as a wage monkey.

The news is full of how this is the year everyone is going to get a new job. Or demand better conditions. We are never so well off that we could not be better off.

What is it we want? I guess some people are okay with spending the time it takes to get their office chair to accept the exact contour of their buttocks.

I’m not so okay with that.

What stories are we telling ourselves about what this work is for? Should it be enough that we eat and stay warm? It’s not enough for the people I know. We want more!

A car! And not just any car…A home…a set of fancy matched mathoms.

…I don’t think this is what Marx had in mind…

But who is Karl to tell us what we want? Maybe Karl Marx is not so relevant as other Karls .