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>>US labor history has been erased from public dialogue in the US almost as thoroughly as Tienanmen Square has been erased from public dialogue in China. These

>>US labor history has been erased from public dialogue in the US almost as thoroughly as Tienanmen Square has been erased from public dialogue in China. These kinds of conspiracy theories about the alleged defeat of the unions at the hands of corporations are on par with anti-vaxxerism. They rely entirely on the instinctive belief that we live in a zero-sum world where the establishment encourages norms to exploit the masses, and that therefore contrarianism empowers the underdog. The truth is the US Labor movement took complete control over major US industries, from Big Auto, to US Steel, to the passenger rail service, and drove them into bankruptcy or Outsourcing. With the laws that they put in place the U.S. is very inhospitable to manufacturing. Amazon and Tesla, two firms succeeding on a global stage with US-based production, are next on The Chopping Block, as activist types promote putting them under the monopolistic control of unions. As for the history of the labor movement, people like you conveniently gloss over the extreme violence that was at the heart of it. The labor unions were closely linked with organized crime and on numerous occasions murdered replacement workers and used threats of violence to enforce picket lines. The propaganda that you're promoting now is just a continuation of the campaign of lies that empowered the labor unions in the first place.

boomboomsubban 7y ago
>As for the history of the labor movement, people like you conveniently gloss over the extreme violence that was at the heart of it. The labor unions were closely linked with organized crime and on numerous occasions murdered replacement workers and used threats of violence to enforce picket lines Companies have also had ties to organized crime and use intimidation to prevent workers from striking. Plus, a history of hiring "soldiers" to slaughter workers.
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  Much less so. Companies had law on their side. All they had to do is exercise their freedom to contract, by firing those workers that they did not want to associate with anymore. Where they did use violence they were usually entirely legally justified, in reacting to illegal violence by unions like picket lines that were violently enforced or trespassing on company property or any other number of thuggish intimidation tactics used by unions. It is the unionists who needed to violate the right of employers to freely associate with whoever they wanted. That's why the unions engaged in so much illegal activity and that's why they aggressively advocated to institute laws that restricted the right of employers to freely contract. Unions depend entirely on subverting and restricting the free market. They are rent-seeking institutions and can only gain public support by lying about their history and the nature of a freely agreed to employment arrangement, using rhetoric where Marxist concepts like wage slavery, expropriation of surplus value and other inflammatory demagoguery predominate.
lemmsjid 7y ago
I've rarely seen such a one sided representation. How about a less ideologically colored view? Both unions and corporations have histories of violence, lack of efficiency, monopolistic actions, choking off of competition, etc. In fact, you can spread that out to any human institution and add organized religion, sports, government, HOAs, what-have-you to the mix. When a human group gets too much power in their area, abuses arise. In fact, that was the core historical analysis of the founding fathers of the US, hence the separation of powers. By separating powers in the US Constitution, they intentionally added all sorts of inefficiency in order to allow for checks and balances. Unions certainly introduce inefficiency into the free market enterprise, but without them, abuses can and have arisen. Figuring out the right balance of power between unions and corporations should be the goal, but instead we have the current political environment, where unions are demonized because of one sided representations of abuses they led to.
- CryptoPunk 7y ago
  >Unions certainly introduce inefficiency into the free market enterprise, but without them, abuses can and have arisen. This is the false dichotomy promoted by unions. While obviously there are instances of unions counteracting corporate abusive, unions by-and-large subvert the right to freely contract and the right to private property and therefore increase abuse. They do not combat the main forms of corporate abuse like lobbying to restrict competition via regulatory barriers, licensing restrictions, etc. The NEA for example supported the bank bailout that was a massive subsidy to banking corporations in the form of socializing their losses and risks. Unions are designed specifically to acquire monopolies over labor forces. They are not like corporations where there are good ones and bad ones. Unions are almost all harmful to the freedom to contract because that's what the union organizational structure was designed to do.
jhbadger 7y ago
>The labor unions were closely linked with organized crime The Teamsters (one specific union dealing with shipping) was linked with organized crime, yes, but it's hardly fair to claim that most unions had anything to do with them.

boomboomsubban 7y ago

>As for the history of the labor movement, people like you conveniently gloss over the extreme violence that was at the heart of it. The labor unions were closely linked with organized crime and on numerous occasions murdered replacement workers and used threats of violence to enforce picket lines Companies have also had ties to organized crime and use intimidation to prevent workers from striking. Plus, a history of hiring "soldiers" to slaughter workers.

CryptoPunk 7y ago
Much less so. Companies had law on their side. All they had to do is exercise their freedom to contract, by firing those workers that they did not want to associate with anymore. Where they did use violence they were usually entirely legally justified, in reacting to illegal violence by unions like picket lines that were violently enforced or trespassing on company property or any other number of thuggish intimidation tactics used by unions. It is the unionists who needed to violate the right of employers to freely associate with whoever they wanted. That's why the unions engaged in so much illegal activity and that's why they aggressively advocated to institute laws that restricted the right of employers to freely contract. Unions depend entirely on subverting and restricting the free market. They are rent-seeking institutions and can only gain public support by lying about their history and the nature of a freely agreed to employment arrangement, using rhetoric where Marxist concepts like wage slavery, expropriation of surplus value and other inflammatory demagoguery predominate.

lemmsjid 7y ago

I've rarely seen such a one sided representation. How about a less ideologically colored view? Both unions and corporations have histories of violence, lack of efficiency, monopolistic actions, choking off of competition, etc. In fact, you can spread that out to any human institution and add organized religion, sports, government, HOAs, what-have-you to the mix. When a human group gets too much power in their area, abuses arise. In fact, that was the core historical analysis of the founding fathers of the US, hence the separation of powers. By separating powers in the US Constitution, they intentionally added all sorts of inefficiency in order to allow for checks and balances. Unions certainly introduce inefficiency into the free market enterprise, but without them, abuses can and have arisen. Figuring out the right balance of power between unions and corporations should be the goal, but instead we have the current political environment, where unions are demonized because of one sided representations of abuses they led to.

CryptoPunk 7y ago
>Unions certainly introduce inefficiency into the free market enterprise, but without them, abuses can and have arisen. This is the false dichotomy promoted by unions. While obviously there are instances of unions counteracting corporate abusive, unions by-and-large subvert the right to freely contract and the right to private property and therefore increase abuse. They do not combat the main forms of corporate abuse like lobbying to restrict competition via regulatory barriers, licensing restrictions, etc. The NEA for example supported the bank bailout that was a massive subsidy to banking corporations in the form of socializing their losses and risks. Unions are designed specifically to acquire monopolies over labor forces. They are not like corporations where there are good ones and bad ones. Unions are almost all harmful to the freedom to contract because that's what the union organizational structure was designed to do.

jhbadger 7y ago

>The labor unions were closely linked with organized crime The Teamsters (one specific union dealing with shipping) was linked with organized crime, yes, but it's hardly fair to claim that most unions had anything to do with them.