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by jerf
5493 days ago
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The author spends a lot of the article wondering about why Big Labor seems to be whiffing so many obvious opportunities (joining with entrepreneurs is the hook but it's really just one special case of the larger point), but the answer is obvious once you drop the theory for a moment and look at the reality: Big Labor leadership is not the same as Big Labor membership. Leadership has long since become its own entity, and succumbed to the first law of organizations: All organizations inevitably evolve until the perpetuation of their own existence becomes their overriding priority. Big Labor and Big Business are adversarial, certainly, I don't think claiming they are in cahoots adequately explains the behavior we see, but they do require the same basic environment to exist in. Which the article itself points out, but since he's collapsed the two distinct entities into one he isn't quite able to follow through on what it means. It probably is in the interests of the membership to join with and support entrepreneurs. It is absolutely not in the interest of the leadership to do so. (I know there is more than one union; I speak in the singular for convenience. In practice it seems to me pretty much every union you've ever heard of is all in the same place.) The author also trots out the terrible "voting against their best interests" argument (insulting those who don't believe what you do is generally an unpersuasive argument technique) after three pages of explaining how supporting unions has failed to produce the best outcome, the irony apparently lost on the author. I don't vote Democrat precisely because I do not believe it to be in my best interests. I believe with what is IMHO some justification that they tend to trade short-term gains for long term losses, and tend to simply create new entrenched interests instead of protecting mine. I live in Michigan, where the long term losses have arrived. A lot of people have voted their "best interests" around here. Perhaps less insulting and more verification that it really is their "best interests" being served is in order. Second order effects can't be ignored. The real point of the preceding paragraphs not being to prove that my beliefs are true, as justifying them here would be a waste of time, but that the assumption that not voting Democrat must be motivated by stupidity and lack of self-interest is not fully justified. There are good reasons not to vote Democrat. (There are good reasons not to vote any particular party.) (Oh, and don't mentally translate "I don't vote Democrat" to "I vote Republican", BTW. It would not be accurate.) |
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