Page 287 – Less Than Labor

[Intro – spoken, stripped] This wasn’t work. This was extraction. [Verse 1] Factories turned into graves with a schedule and quota, names stripped first, then calories, then culture. They called it labor, but labor implies a choice, this was bodies converted to output, silence, and noise. Men starved standing up, women dropped mid-line, keep the belt moving, production don’t pause for the dying. Numbers replaced faces, faces replaced by tags, human life depreciated faster than scrap. Barracks packed tight like inventory stacked, sleep rationed thin, punishment came compact. You collapse, you’re removed, not healed, not fed, steel needed shaping, not mouths or bread. This wasn’t chaos, it was management clean, optimize suffering, maximize yield per machine. [Hook] They worked them to nothing, then worked them some more, life priced cheaper than coal on the floor. No wage, no mercy, no exit plan, this wasn’t labor, it was supply on demand. [Verse 2] Children learned shifts before learning their names, elders broke fast just to slow down the pain. If you asked for water, you learned what it cost, if you asked for rest, you learned how to get lost. Steel never blinked, orders never shook, the cruelty lived calm inside a rulebook. Starvation wasn’t failure, it was pressure applied, keep them weak enough so rebellion dies. Guards didn’t improvise, they followed the sheet, every atrocity filed as procedure complete. Factories ate lives like a furnace eats air, and the paperwork stayed pristine, square. [Bridge – minimal] No rage required, no madness needed, just a system where pain is fully seated. Evil don’t scream when it’s working right, it whispers through policy, shift after night. [Verse 3] After the smoke cleared, they tried to rebrand, called it excesses, called it out of hand. But the machines remembered every scream, they were fed by it, tuned by it, kept obscene. You can’t wash blood out of supply chains, just reroute the blame, let time explain. They said it was war, said conditions were rough, but war don’t require this level of stuff. This was profit with hunger factored in, a lesson written deep in industrial skin. [Hook] They worked them to nothing, then worked them some more, life priced cheaper than coal on the floor. No wage, no mercy, no exit plan, this wasn’t labor, it was supply on demand. [Outro – spoken] When industry loses restraint, people become fuel.