Komrads, alvays shoppe die Union Label, Da?
Posted on 12/21/2005 9:16:01 AM PST by Marxbites
Dyan French was right. It was an ISM...Capitalism.
Komrads, alvays shoppe die Union Label, Da?
DiLorenzo is a little off base. Under a system of pure capitalism, we'd still have child labor because they wouldn't be any legislation prohibiting it. It's not that people suddenly said, hey, let's voluntarily end child labor. As the article state, kids went to work for a reason and employers hired them for a reason as well. Cheap labor.
Market processes "give", and for that we should be grateful, but they can also "take away", which is why many look to law and collective bargaining to secure their past gains. Those people are wrong about a lot of things. They may be in for a rude awakening if productivity declines as benefits rise, but it's not as though they are behaving irrationally or immorally.
Under a system of pure capitalism, we'd still have child labor because they wouldn't be any legislation prohibiting it.
Look for the union label
When you're being evicted from your house.
Remember somewhere, a union's plotting,
as your wage is dropping - so they can
help elect a crook, a Democrat, a louse.
So remember, look for that union label
When your next coat, costs as much as an average house.
Remember somewhere, a Union Rep is moaning
'Cause your wages are not going
To feed HIS kids or to run HIS house.
Who works only 34 hours a week? Take govt. 'workers' out of the mix for a real number.
I believe there is a kernel of truth to what the Democrats say about Republicans being "all about profit". I also believe there is much more than a kernel of truth to what the Republicans say about Democrats being "a bunch of bleeding hearts"or basically commie in nature. There is a fine balance between the two parties' philosophies that makes for an optimum outcome. My opinion only, your mileage may vary.
Reread the article Jess. You are missing the main point - free choice, which unions obliterate.
I started working when I was old enough to push a mower from block to block.
I guess you'd have deprived me that?
Exactly...If this guy was any where near being close to right, we wouldn't have over 20 million illegal aliens in this country trying to go to work for these capitalists...And the capitalists wouldn't be chomping at the bit to hire them...
There is plenty of greed on both sides of the equation.
I do believe unions forced some good changes; workplace safety is one of those. I also disagree with the idea that businesses mostly made or would have made these changes on their own with only an economic motivation.
However, now that these things have been accomplished, I think the primary goals of labor unions are power, money and political influence. The economic effect of the labor union is the same as any other cartel/pseudo monopoly: higher costs.
The long-term net effect of modern labor unions is that prices are higher and quality is lower. Mediocrity is protected. Businesses are held hostage.
The day of the beneficial labor union is over.
BTW, Jess, pure capitalism equals the pure freedom our over-constitutional behemoth took from us beginning with the ICC's creation. All to guarantee the railroads a minimum profit to the detriment of the small competitors that were squeezing the profits their own over-extended Govt subsidized misallocations of capital created.
Add the Fed and the income tax in 1913. Inflation with fiat currency and egregious taxation permitted the massive Govt expansion and over reaching power ensued - the New Deal was the socialist tax and spender's icing on the cake, a central planner's delight. In fact an early 30's America was jealous of the "wonders" of Euro-socialism/fascism govts such as Mussolini, Hitler & Stalin. Have we not yet learned the lessons of the misery that the utopian idiocy of planned economies and society brings??
We are but a pale semblence of our pre-1890 America of limited Govt and maximum freedom. And I for one will never give up on it's restoration.
Well, you'd have to specify where and when. Is children's involvement in drug running and prostitution higher in the US because of child labor laws? That's doubtful.
You'd have a better case in talking about Third World countries. But consider a situation where kids have jobs in the Nike factory and their parents, poor farmers or fishermen don't. Then the kid hears about that there's more money and an easier life in running drugs or prostitution, so he or she goes that way. One could at least make the case that laws that kept the kids in school serve a purpose.
My father, RIP, was a union guy for 40 years but had a contracting business on the side. He worked extremely hard on both jobs. He railed against the union workers that were "loafers" and the fact the union protected them. He never saw {and nothing I could say would change his mind} the irony, in his position. The same could be said about his politics. Too bad, he was a smart guy, but FDR was his version of God. Forget logic, didn't work.
I give unions credit for much improvement in industrial safety. I worked over 5 years, in my first real engineering job, in a large chemical plant which never had a lost time accident. Then I moved to a high-tech electronics company, and in the first couple of weeks there a plant janitor got himself killed trying to cut open a barrel with a torch. This could NEVER have happened where I was before, because the janitor would never have been allowed to pick up a torch, and a welder would not have attacked the barrel until a safety man checked it out.
I'm not generally a union defender, but I did want to point out this area where they have been of service, unintentionally or not.
...and business goes offshore, which deprives Americans of jobs... and whole business sectors are hobbled (eg. manufacturing)... and incompetence is rewarded (eg. government employees)... and workers are forced to contribute to causes and candidates they abhor... the list goes on and on.
Ignorance is bliss eh?
What keeps illegals coming is corrupt Govt's refusal to enforce the laws it itself enacted, as well as the lobbying of communists and socialists.
If you are not a capitalist how is it you are American? Surely Castro's Cuba could better use a mind so well aligned with his own?
Without free markets, ie. capitalism you have no liberty, period.
Apparently academe has done a good job indoctrinating you all into the belief there is some softer middle ground between capitalism and communism. If such is the case, America is in far worse shape and further off our constitutional course than I feared already.
DiLorenzo is to economics what Newton was to physics, one of history's best, nuff said, I hope.
The Tycoons broke laws that politicians refused to enforce or were complicit in, period.
It is no more possible for an employer to hold you over a barrel than what you allow and the very nature of free choice.
Less Govt equals more jobs, always has, always will.
Read my previous please.
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