[_5ysi]

I know I shouldn't be taking the bait but here goes anyway.

Smart union leaders today would be working on organizing and building relationship with peers in other countries. Fighting for US state backed monopolies is fighting on the old battleground with outdated weapons that may be immoral (state enforced monopolies often are).

> That just seems so paternalistic to me. You agree that those low on the totem-pole should have it better but handing them a method of direct-action, to collectively and directly make their work environments better doesn't make sense?

If were going to use the loaded word paternalistic, requiring people to be a union member is more paternalistic than giving them the option. Also I propose policies that (I think) would make work more valuable. Do you think it is fair that the Federal Reserve transfers and additional 2% of workers' pay to capitalists and politicians every year?

> This is actual nonsense. If you don't believe that making the middle and lower class better off is good for an economy, I don't know what to tell you.

Not my belief at all.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

>Smart union leaders today would be working on organizing and building relationship with peers in other countries.

Smart union leaders today are trying to figure out how to end right-to-work so they can actually exist.

>Fighting for US state backed monopolies is fighting on the old battleground with outdated weapons that may be immoral (state enforced monopolies often are).

Minor quibble here - that a monopoly exists and that it exists in the US does not make it backed by the state. Monopolies don't need state backing to exist.

But I also agree that we should dust off Teddy Roosevelt's big stick and use it to smash the monopolies/oligopolies if that helps.

>If were going to use the loaded word paternalistic, requiring people to be a union member is more paternalistic than giving them the option.

Right-to-work is about ending free association, it's odd to paint unions as anti-free association. In an ordinary market environment a widget company could set up an exclusive supply deal with a plastic company where plastic is supplied at a set rate under certain agreements and we'd all be fine with that. But if we switch out "plastic" for "labor" and "plastic company" for "labor union" then suddenly we outlaw it. The idea that you think government should interfere in the contractual dealings of labor-supply in our market but not commodity-supply describes the hypocrisy.

>Also I propose policies that (I think) would make their work more valuable.

That's why I called it paternalism. What you think makes their work more valuable is good but even just giving them the tool to decide what is good for themselves is bad.

>Do you think it is fair that the Federal Reserve transfers and additional 2% of workers' pay to capitalists and politicians every year?

Take your Friedman talking points somewhere else.

>Not my belief at all.

But it's exactly what you described. You think that labor organizing in an effort to gain higher pay will hurt your capital investments.

>I know I shouldn't be taking the bait but here goes anyway.

Me too lol.

[_5ysi]

Hi I wanted to wait a day to have a more personal conversation with you, I hope you see this post.

Idk if you are involved in any union leadership roles, but I am a single earner below the U.S. median income in a rust belt state. I also save some of my income and invest it, so I'm a capitalist. Again if your involved in any union leadership, I would support you if you focused on organizing the monopoly on labor around the world. I like investing my income in American companies and I would rather see workers around the world claim more of their value added, rather than have American companies close, foreign capitalists win, and all labores lose.

With regard to state backed monopolies, I was talking about unions in states without right-to-work. Since it is codified into law that labor cannot exist outside of union X, these unions are state backed monopolies. And I don't really spend any time thinking about whether this is morally justified (ie I don't spend any time thinking about whether we should have right to work laws), it is a pointless thing to spend time on because companies can manufacture anywhere in the world but there is no global government with power to enforce its laws globally. So right to work exists, regardless of what the states of Michigan or Ohio thinks. There is evidence for this being true as there has been a long term decline in private sector unions coinciding with globalization, but no similar fall in public sector unions, because for public sector work the workers possible locations are trivially within the jurisdiction of the government.

> Take your Friedman talking points somewhere else.

Wow ad hominem much? Marx and Keynes also have the index of prices as a fundamental variable in their equations. It doesn't matter to my point about 2% inflation whether the head of the Fed is more Marxist, Keynesian, or Friedman monetarist. As long as the Fed mandate is to have inflation there will continue to be a long term, regressive redistribution of workers wages towards existing capital and those with the power to borrow new capital. I am actively, in my life, trying to get Democratic Party leaders to admit this is true so that I can justify voting for one. It is super duplicitous for Obama to speak so much about inequality and support minimum wage increases yet at the same time stab all the workers in the back by tripling the currency supply and continuing the policy of long term inflation wage theft.

Neither Obama nor Trump started these policies but I don't know which is morally worse, systematically lying about it and covering it up or simply not caring about unfair inequality at all.

An easy change we (the U.S.) could implement on our own, next election, that would reduce wealth inequality in America without hurting economic growth at home or the people in developing nations... would be remitting the Federal Reserves' profits directly to the people as cash dividends. If this had been in place this year every citizen would be receiving around $300. The shareholders of the federal reserve should be the people, equally. When powerful capitalist benefit from the system, the little capitalist should get their share of the rewards too. After this the next step is resetting the inflation target to be always within a tight band on either side of zero.