This column is to appear in the Augusta Business Chronicle (September 2000).  Labor Day The first Monday of September is labor day. Today, regrettably, it means scarcely more than a day off, the beginning of election season in earnest, and the end of summer. How sad. There ought to be shouts of joy and jubilation celebrating our accomplishments and those of our forebears. Labor day honors working people. The first labor day parade took place in New York City in September 1882. Oregon became the first state to mandate labor day as a legal holiday, in 1887. And President Grover Cleveland signed the bill, in 1894, that made labor day a national holiday in the US. In 1889, a congress of world Socialist parties, held in Paris, voted to support US workers' struggle for an eight-hour workday and chose May 1st as the day for annual labor demonstrations. This became a European tradition that continues to this day, even if bereft of its political connotations in today's post-cold war world. In Australia, labor day indeed is known as "eight-hour day." A hundred-some years ago, "to labor" referred to manual or blue-collar labor, and the salaried, white-collared classes kept their distance, not to speak of the monied class of business owners and railroad tycoons. Today we are more enlightened. We understand that even salaried people work, and so do owners of course. Recognizing the incredible variety of work people do never ceases to amaze me. Here's a partial listing of people I have been in touch with, for one reason or another, in the past few days. The owners of a scuba diving shop; sales personnel of another. A medical doctor and his staff. A deputy at the Richmond Country Sheriff's Department. ASU President Bill Bloodworth. A dinner friend who is a psychologist in private practice. A restaurant manager. The old and the new editor of the Augusta Business Chronicle. A roofer who fixed my leaking roof. A dairy farmer. A nurse. Workers at a tire shop. Professional economists overseas. An editor at a book publishing house. Teachers. A kinder gardener. A carpenter. Landscaping personnel at the Riverview Park in North Augusta. The postman. And so on. And let's not forget those who make economically valuable contributions even if unpaid in the marketplace. Volunteers at the food bank or hospital. Parents looking after their children, cleaning the house, and cooking meals. Teenagers mowing the lawn. A neighbor helping another fix a sprinkler system or looking after the house when you are on vacation. The retiree serving on the local library board. And grandparents performing uncounted kindnesses to community and family. In a word, practically every time you meet a person, you meet a worker. Each one works for him/herself, yet makes a contribution to the whole. As Adam Smith wrote more than two centuries ago: it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the baker, and the brewer that we expect our daily sustenance, but we do so from the pursuit of our self-interest that makes them alert to offer what we desire and that makes us alert to offer what others desire. Collectively, a prosperous society is built on the labor each of us performs. Living today in the richest and most prosperous society there ever was, surely there is much reason for joy and celebration. To me, labor day, is a secular Christmas, and I cherish it more than Christmas itself because the latter is limited to a single, if large, group of believers, whereas the former literally touches the entirety of humanity, past and present. We ought to celebrate ourselves and our achievements. Enjoy labor day! Dr. J. Brauer is Professor of Economics at Augusta State University's College of Business Administration. He can best be reached via his web site (http://www.aug.edu/~sbajmb).