[bufordsharkley]

> there is an aristocracy of heirs who own rights to expropriate surplus labor time

As a Georgist, I tend to view Marxist critiques such as this as fairly superficial. We agree that something wrong is happening, but a Georgist is able to pin-point the point of unfairness and recommend a remedy, whereas the Marxist believes that any employment generates a "surplus value" (how?), which I'm skeptical is true much of the time.

In short, I see this line of reasoning as the result of conflating capital and land, at the expense of the honest employer.

Unions are clearly a powerful tool to allow for collective bargaining, and advance the position of labor. But I don't think it affects the fundamentals of the economy―what is being produced, where. I tend to think unions have declined in America largely because the efficiency of our economies have declined in the places they were most effective.

[defgeneric]

The theory of surplus value isn't really about fairness. It simply says that there must be some value above the "socially necessary labor time" required to produce commodities in order for the category of profit to exist. It's a critique in the sense that it takes the surface-level appearance of concepts like value and profit for granted as they are, then sort of reverse-engineers them to illuminate their conditions of possibility and the relationships between them. So surplus value isn't the same as profit, and in later stages of the analysis it's argued that for example "aggregate" surplus value can be transferred between industries based on those relative rates of profit without any "real" transfers taking place. It has been a little while since I really had a firm hold on the theory but if you're interested in how it's applied to describe conditions of overproduction and overproduction crises, Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism has a good analysis of the 1980s.

[oxide]

The stuff we see in Wisconsin for example, IMO, is directly connected to the 1980's rhetoric and sentiment around unions that never went away.

While both sides have perfectly valid arguments for and against unionization, there is no compromise or middle ground to be found, only partisanship from the politicans who are charged with finding compromises, who have the power to make and break unions.

I do agree with your point about efficency declining, but I also smell a fish when it comes to partisan politics surrounding unionization of workers. Both sides seem too concerned with ultimatiums and heel-digging.

Surely there is a way to compromise, but if neither side will sacrifice you can't get anywhere at all.

[r00fus]

If you and another person are arguing over what's for dinner and the other person's position is "lets eat tires" - there is no compromise possible.

At some point, it's pretty easy to see that the anti-unionists simply want to destroy all unions and collective wage-bargaining. End of story.

[antisthenes]

Thank you for enlightening me about Georgism.