[tehjoker]

Just wanting to make money is political because it means the environment has been configured in such a way that you can do so. If you make money in the position of a manager or boss, it is even more strongly political as you are using the configuration of the political system to direct societal resources at your whim to make money.

[cltby]

Just playing the bongos is political because it means the environment has been configured in such a way that you can do so. If you play the bongos in the position of a manager or boss, it is even more strongly political as you are using the configuration of the political system to direct societal resources at your whim to play the bongos.

You might be proving too much here.

[tehjoker]

Not at all. While there is a tiny bit of truth to your bongo example, money in particular is highly political though it has been rhetorically stripped in order to make it appear as though it is not so the wealthy can make money in peace. Controlling the distribution of resources in society is a highly political question.

Who makes more money at work for example? The low level employee or the boss? Who controls what, why, and how things are produced? What the schedules are? These are smaller questions than national policy, but they are political in nature. Of course, the socialist movement sees all workplaces' workers united together as a national political project. When you swim in water all your life, you can't see it easily unless someone points it out.

Another reason "just making money" is political is because so many people can't. In a society with levels of inequality that approximate ancient kingdoms, the lowest people in society have little opportunity to "just make money" and their invisibility is a political artifice.

Put another way, what is political is the ability to _not care_ when others are suffering. People are being deported, attacked in the streets, dying of disease, etc. so keeping your head down _and make money_ during such a time is something won by virtue of class. Other people can't ignore it because politics is life and death. While exhaustion is a valid excuse to rest (I'm super tired myself), what is being asked is for solidarity and to exhibit positive humanity towards other people. A primary site of conflict and domination is the workplace -- it's just that so many of us are used to losing or out competing each other that we don't band together to win.