Posted on 02/04/2006 11:26:10 AM PST by Nasty McPhilthy
It is time for those of us on the Right to choose a new vocabulary.
I am tired using the vocabulary of the Left. I am especially talking about the ubiquitous use of the term “workers,” which is a Marxist term. It has been selected consciously by the press and the Left because of that origin and the connotations it carries with it.
I have never considered myself as a “worker.” Ants are workers, drones are workers, people are employees, or if they have a trade they are artisans, craftsmen, or tradesmen.
The true synonyms for “worker” are proletarian (or “prol” for short), serf, or slave. The Left needs these associated meanings to promulgate the implications that current labor laws and conditions of employment are inherently unfair to those who are not in management.
They desire to portray the “plight” of those who perform those types of work which require hard physical labor, or skilled trades as being oppressed by the large corporations (“the rich”) which employ them. It is necessary for them if they are going to foment anger and resentment so that they can promote their socialist agenda.
Working hand in hand with those of the political left (usually the rich Leftist elite) are the leaders of Labor Unions, who obviously have a vested interest in portraying their members as downtrodden and oppressed. These folks achieve and retain their power by talking down America and the lifestyles of the American workforce. Yet it is these same unions and their unreasonable demands that are primarily responsible for the recent trend of heavy manufacturing jobs moving overseas.
A prime example of this is the plight of General Motors today. How can an American car manufacturer hope to compete with Toyota or Nissan when $1500 of the cost of every car they manufacture is spent on benefits compared to the typical per auto cost of $300 at Toyota. That is not an inconsiderable difference.
According to the National Post article Fixed-cost labour killing domestic automakers, there are over 12,000 bone-idle UAW members who are paid not to work by the American automobile manufacturers:
“one of the truly nefarious costs holding General Motors (and all the other domestic manufacturers) back is the UAW's job banks. Created in the mid-1980s, the Job Opportunity Bank Security system pays eligible workers as much as 95% of their salary plus all health and pension benefits until they are eligible to retire.” 5,000 of the UAW members in the Jobs Bank are GM employees and Delphi Corporation has 4,000. The Chrysler Group of DaimlerChrysler AG has 2,100, and Ford Motor Co. has 1,200. Last year, GM took an $800 million charge to cover those laid-off workers. In addition, $3.2 billion had to be earmarked for pension and benefits costs at Delphi - an obligation it picked up as a result of Delphi filing for bankruptcy protection. Wage costs in unionized plants can be three times as high as foreign-run, non-union factories that have opened up within the United States. These “non-union shops” manufacture better vehicles at a lower price.
The really sad part is that these union leaders continue to tell their membership that the above numbers are not the cause of the problem. They still lay all the blame on “Corporate Management.” Now to be sure, American automobile company executives have not been the brightest stars in the sky, but it is absurd to imply that the exorbitant wage and benefits packages the unions have extorted from American automobile manufacturers have not been a major portion of the problem.
Unions have been the enemy of most of the skilled labor pool for some time now. Back in the early 1970’s the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union called a strike against Shell’s plants in Houston. As a direct result of production quotas being met and exceeded using a skeleton crew of “scab” workers (composed mostly of non-union laboratory and engineering employees) Shell promptly cut their labor force in half following the strike. That’s right; the result of the OCAW strike was a loss of 1500 jobs at that one location. In the intervening 30 years the OCAW has occasionally threatened another strike, but the members have never again walked off the job.
My primary point in this is that we Conservatives need to be wary of using the vocabulary of our Liberal adversaries. In doing so we find ourselves trapped in an argument we can’t win. Using the term “worker” to describe iron workers or electricians, or whatever the skill is, we are buying in to the assumption that the people being discussed are just nameless downtrodden masses.
We see the same difficulties if we allow ourselves to use the usual Liberal euphemisms like pro-choice rather than pro-abortion which is much closer to the truth.
We have, out of our desire to avoid seeming insensitive, handicapped ourselves in the ongoing social war in our society. Every time some new group decides that a term like crippled, or handicapped, or old, or retarded is offensive (incidentally, it’s usually not someone in the named group that decides the term is offensive, it’s usually some outside do-good agitator) the Left comes up with a new euphemistic term for them which helps them not one whit, but makes the Liberal feel better about discussing them.
Perhaps we should spend less time worrying about what to call someone or some group and more time trying to decide how best to help them.
In the case of “workers,” the best way to help them is to move as far away from socialism as we can and move as fast as we can to a more capitalistic economy in which everyone shares the prosperity. This can only come about by paying employees based on the merit of their work rather than the years in service or years in the union.
Socialism strips away the ambition of employees by paying all “workers” the same wage for the same job regardless of the innate superior talents and skills one employee may have over another. In capitalism it is through the exploitation of that extra talent that one may rise among his fellows. It is that ability which made the American industrial nation the greatest in the world and unions which are a child of the socialist movements of the early 20th Century which strip that opportunity away from the American people.
We see this in the teaching profession as well as in heavy industry. It is apparent wherever unions are in power. Unions provide employment at the expense of productivity, uniform wages at the expense of initiative. The net result of unionization in the modern workforce is maximized uniform wages for the lowest common level of performance. They beg the question, “Why should a man work twice as hard as the one next to him if, at the end of the day, they are both going to be paid the same?”
By labeling them workers rather than men and women, we dehumanize and diminish each person our corporations and companies employ.
That is something the elitists on the Left relish and promote. Remember, the most oppressive regimes in the world have been run by socialist and communist elites like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and of late, Saddam Hussein.
But are you a comrade?
BTTT
I don't care what you call me, just don't call me late for dinner!
Ahhh but the point is.......to our government we are nothing but workers. We are nothing but a source of revenue, votes, and power to them. I don't think the average politician gives a crap about we the workers. They haven't in a very long time.
And for that matter "capitalism" itself is, I assume, a term Marx coined.
"And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate spokesman, defines liberalism as 'meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government.' Well, I for one resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me--the free man and woman of this country--as 'the masses.' This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America.
- Ronald Reagan, "A Time for Choosing."
Given the number of people in this country who have never done the proverbial 'honest day's work' in their entire lives, I'm proud to be called a worker. I actually like that better than "cube rat."
But I understand the author's point; we need to get past the demagoguery that brought us both Communism and such terrorist organizations as the Molly MacGuires.
"Workers of the world, unite, and join the Revolution! You have nothing to lose but your chains."
Yeah, right. I work for a living, and you don't see shackle scars on my wrists or ankles.
That was brilliant.
The correct word for this is envy, the evil force behind leftism.
...Perhaps we should spend less time worrying about what to call someone or some group and more time trying to decide how best to help them.
A bit of schizophrenia there.
What better term could there be? We all work.
I work at being a Millwright.
"Working Families" always bothers me...
Marx has defined "capitalism" in terms of every "failure" of a free market, so there is no way to argue in favor of capitalism. Dialectics 101 - define your enemy's terms.
NPR had a story on the GM job banks just the other day.
They made it a point to talk to community groups where the 'job banks' people spend time helping with maintenance repairs, setting up stage props, etc.
The message seemed to be that it would really hurt these communities if they lost all the 'free' time donated by Job Bank people.
Nice socialist slant. Can't figure out why NPR doesn't also pay a few thousand people to do nothing for NPR.
/sarcasm
I used to work with SEIU reps who constantly referred to their members as "the workers". They are paleolithic socialists, who still have tremendous political power.
Remember a newly assigned lieutenant who annoyingly referred to her enlisted people as "worker bees."
The wing commander put an end to it the afternoon he introduced her to his staff.
"This is Lieutenant Knowsnothing. She works for Chief Brownshoe. If she listens and applies herself, the Chief just might make something of her."
She did and he did.
The first leaders {and their philosophy} of the modern demonRAT party.
The demonRAT plank is taken from these two communist's losers views.
Don't take my word, google communist manifesto and read it for yourself.
Then review the demonRAT's socialists writings and compare.
Hey, no arguement from me. I have read the Manifesto (along with Mein Kampf and many other "forbidden" works.)
Communism is a failed experiment, despite the whining of the Left that "It just hasn't been done correctly yet."
Only a modern capitalist society could have produced such a surplus of goods and services that these two idiots would have had the leisure to sit around and dream up such unmitigated nonsense.
Your average Liberal has never had to live under a Communist society, and so has no idea what they're embracing. Just as "he who has never known fear, has never known courage" those who have never known oppression can never truly savor freedom.
My favorite quote from Marx is "Never trust a Russian; once a Russian gets his hand in, everything turns to (expletive deleted.)"
If he only knew. . .
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