The New Feudalism
Timothy Birdnow
Howard Rich has a piece about the NLRB forcing Boeing to locate a new plant in Washington State rather than South Carolina as planned in order to make Big Labor happy.
http://netrightdaily.com/2011/05/pure-thuggery/
According to Rich:
"Last month, the NLRB alleged that aircraft manufacturer Boeing’s decision to locate a new manufacturing facility in South Carolina (as opposed to Washington State) constituted an illegal retaliation against striking union workers. That claim is laughable — particularly in light of the fact that Boeing has added 2,000 new union jobs in Washington State since announcing its South Carolina decision.
Of course this complaint isn’t about law or logic — it is about repaying a political debt, at least in the short-term.
Unions gave more than $100 million to Barack Obama and Democratic congressional candidates in 2008 — and that’s just their direct contributions. They also ran an extensive voter registration and mobilization effort, which was staffed by an estimated 450,000 union “volunteers.”'
End excerpt.
Rich rightly calls this a shot across the bow of free enterprise, but I think he - and most commentators - dances around the fundamental point.
First, let us review the situation.
The Founding Fathers were heavily influenced by the philosophy of John Locke, and Locke's views on property were a vital part of the American Experiment and, indeed, justification of the rebellion against England, since taxation without representation was tantamount to stealing.
Locke's view is that, in a state of nature, all was free for the taking, and the man who did something with the natural state i.e. improved it (a real-estate term which generally means build on it and in practice means you'll pay more taxes) then holds title to said property. It's a man's labor that grants him title; a claim on any sort of property, be it a physical structure, a piece of land, an intellectual treatise, or even one's own body, comes from some manner of labor. Once claimed by labor, any property then belongs to the individual, who is free to transfer that ownership to others.
I own 20 acres of backwoods property in the Missouri Ozarks (which cost next to nothing as it is largely worthless land) and I have only utilized a small portion of this property (where I have constructed a very rough-hewn cabin) but I own all twenty acres regardless. Why? Because a logging company purchased the land from others, and logged it in the past. Having established their right to the land they sold it to another, who sold it to me. The labor I employed in my years of work allowed me to purchase this property, which the logging company had rightful deed to possess. That it is undeveloped is unimportant; someone else laid claim before me. Once the property was improved it belonged to the improver, and that legal claim was transfered to me.
(This brings up the question of government land; the U.S. government owns millions of acres of wild lands, and simply took them without making any improvements. They have no more claim on that land than you or I. In fact, there was a fellow named Dick Proenneke who homesteaded at a place called Twin Lakes back in the 1970's, and when Jimmy Carter created the Lake Clark National Park Proenneke was almost evicted as a squatter, despite his being there prior to the U.S. government. One of Proenneke's friends claimed his homestead as Native American ground, claiming she used it for ritual purposes, so the Feds relented and Proenneke got to stay.)
At any rate, Once owned, property belongs to the person who took the initiative to develop it - and to his heirs or assignees (if he sells it).
What does this mean? It means that, should a man build a business, it is his. It does not belong to "the People", it does not belong to the laborers who work for this man, it does not belong to the government. It is his, to do with how he pleases (provided nobody is actually injured by his actions.)
Labor unions change all of this.
Now don't get me wrong; working men, as free individuals, have a right to unionize and collectively bargain. Yessiree. But the company has the right to fire union labor, too, and even to relocate to places not encumbered by strong unions. If the owner of the business believes he is well served by signing union labor to a contract and working with them, more power to it! Should he fire a union under contract he would be guilty of breech. But he has the right to close shop and relocate. The union, of course, has the right to picket and give him negative publicity, too, but they do not have a RIGHT to employment.
Nowhere in the Constitution are labor unions mentioned, nor is any form of right to employment. This is a social right, something out of the socialist movement and enshrined by Roosevelt. It is an ASSUMED right, not an actual right.
As Adam Smith would say, the hidden hand of the market would discipline businesses that mistreated employees. If someone stays with a cheapskate boss, it is for reasons of their own; they are always free to leave. The best workers will go to the best employers, because they will treat them better. As such, a labor union may get more for it's members than they would get otherwise, but they distort the market in fundamental ways, just as government distorts the market. Can anybody seriously argue that the U.S. auto industry is not dying because of unions? What has happened to the other union industries? Steel? Paper? Tool and Dye? Electronics? These are all considered dying industries, but nobody ever considers why. They are dying because they were all heavily unionized, and just can't compete in the marketplace. Granted, they could not compete with Chinese serf-labor or third world wages, but they could still compete in terms of better grade stuff, in terms of abilities to transport, to deliver fast, to provide better quality for better services. But they cannot do even that while union shops demand ridiculous salaries and set work parameters (such as limits on production) that unrealistically depress output.
As a result, the Smith's hidden hand has spoken (in a sort of ASL of the economy) and union industry has been dying.
Now you see where Howard Rich misses the point; unions are fundamentally flawed institutions by their very nature, and are against all concepts of property and fundamental rights.
Now, I'm not saying that unions haven't done some good; certainly, they ended the sweat shop and helped give us the 40 hour work week, but it can be argued that Mussolini made the trains run on time, too, but one hardly condones fascism as a social good. And yes, I am comparing trade unionism to fascism; unions were an integral part of both Mussolini's Fascism and Hitler's National Socialism. Yes, they did some good. Yes, they helped some people. But the price was too high in both instances, and unionism cannot be justified from either American philosophy or American Constitutionalism. It is an alien concept grafted onto American jurisprudence.
And, it should be pointed out, the abuses we were told about were less than the yellow journalism of the day suggested; Upton Sinclair romanticized and fictionalized those abuses as surely as Jack London did the north country (London, whose real name was John Chaney, only visited Alaska once; his stories were pure fiction. Oh, and he was a big supporter of unions and a socialist. As for Sinclair, he was an alcoholic graduate of Columbia who wrote his famous The Jungle after optaining a job for that very purpose. He ran for Congress on the Socialist ticket. He was very interested in psychic phonomena. One must doubt the veracity of his muckracking work.) The Progressives and the labor unions had every reason to rewrite history, to make things worse than they were. Remember, every employee of "Robber Baron" employers was also a consumer, and could just as easily have boycotted products from bad companies.
When we think of the Robber Baron era, we think of social darwinism and laissez faire capitalism. Social darwinism was a product of the left, it should be pointed out, and the faire capitalism has a more modern name of corporatism. This is purposely misleading. G.K. Chesterton, for example, advocated something called Distributism, which was capitalism without government backing big corporations. The reality is the abuses of big business occur in partnership with big government. And the myriad fingers of the welfare state substitute for private charitable initiatives - something that worked fine until the Progressives handed the job to the state.
Feudalism was born when the Roman Emperor Diocletian restricted the movements of farmers and tradesmen. Prior to Diocletian Roman citizens were free to go where they liked and pursue whatever interests they wished, but a dearth farmers and other tradesmen (because everyone wanted on the dole in Rome) led Diocletian to issue edicts forcing people to remain where they were born and to work in the trade of their fathers. Essentially, what the NLRB has done is create a corporate feudalism; a company cannot relocate, but must locate in places the government deems suitable. This is the modern feudalism.
And anyone wanting to work in certain fields must join a union. We have card-check, where unions are given information on who opposes unionization, for example. Unionism promotes modern feudalism as surely as Diocletian promoted the old in Rome.
Rome fell, and part of the reason was this feudalism, this ossification of class and status. Will American unionism lead to anything different?
Howard Rich has a piece about the NLRB forcing Boeing to locate a new plant in Washington State rather than South Carolina as planned in order to make Big Labor happy.
http://netrightdaily.com/2011/05/pure-thuggery/
According to Rich:
"Last month, the NLRB alleged that aircraft manufacturer Boeing’s decision to locate a new manufacturing facility in South Carolina (as opposed to Washington State) constituted an illegal retaliation against striking union workers. That claim is laughable — particularly in light of the fact that Boeing has added 2,000 new union jobs in Washington State since announcing its South Carolina decision.
Of course this complaint isn’t about law or logic — it is about repaying a political debt, at least in the short-term.
Unions gave more than $100 million to Barack Obama and Democratic congressional candidates in 2008 — and that’s just their direct contributions. They also ran an extensive voter registration and mobilization effort, which was staffed by an estimated 450,000 union “volunteers.”'
End excerpt.
Rich rightly calls this a shot across the bow of free enterprise, but I think he - and most commentators - dances around the fundamental point.
First, let us review the situation.
The Founding Fathers were heavily influenced by the philosophy of John Locke, and Locke's views on property were a vital part of the American Experiment and, indeed, justification of the rebellion against England, since taxation without representation was tantamount to stealing.
Locke's view is that, in a state of nature, all was free for the taking, and the man who did something with the natural state i.e. improved it (a real-estate term which generally means build on it and in practice means you'll pay more taxes) then holds title to said property. It's a man's labor that grants him title; a claim on any sort of property, be it a physical structure, a piece of land, an intellectual treatise, or even one's own body, comes from some manner of labor. Once claimed by labor, any property then belongs to the individual, who is free to transfer that ownership to others.
I own 20 acres of backwoods property in the Missouri Ozarks (which cost next to nothing as it is largely worthless land) and I have only utilized a small portion of this property (where I have constructed a very rough-hewn cabin) but I own all twenty acres regardless. Why? Because a logging company purchased the land from others, and logged it in the past. Having established their right to the land they sold it to another, who sold it to me. The labor I employed in my years of work allowed me to purchase this property, which the logging company had rightful deed to possess. That it is undeveloped is unimportant; someone else laid claim before me. Once the property was improved it belonged to the improver, and that legal claim was transfered to me.
(This brings up the question of government land; the U.S. government owns millions of acres of wild lands, and simply took them without making any improvements. They have no more claim on that land than you or I. In fact, there was a fellow named Dick Proenneke who homesteaded at a place called Twin Lakes back in the 1970's, and when Jimmy Carter created the Lake Clark National Park Proenneke was almost evicted as a squatter, despite his being there prior to the U.S. government. One of Proenneke's friends claimed his homestead as Native American ground, claiming she used it for ritual purposes, so the Feds relented and Proenneke got to stay.)
At any rate, Once owned, property belongs to the person who took the initiative to develop it - and to his heirs or assignees (if he sells it).
What does this mean? It means that, should a man build a business, it is his. It does not belong to "the People", it does not belong to the laborers who work for this man, it does not belong to the government. It is his, to do with how he pleases (provided nobody is actually injured by his actions.)
Labor unions change all of this.
Now don't get me wrong; working men, as free individuals, have a right to unionize and collectively bargain. Yessiree. But the company has the right to fire union labor, too, and even to relocate to places not encumbered by strong unions. If the owner of the business believes he is well served by signing union labor to a contract and working with them, more power to it! Should he fire a union under contract he would be guilty of breech. But he has the right to close shop and relocate. The union, of course, has the right to picket and give him negative publicity, too, but they do not have a RIGHT to employment.
Nowhere in the Constitution are labor unions mentioned, nor is any form of right to employment. This is a social right, something out of the socialist movement and enshrined by Roosevelt. It is an ASSUMED right, not an actual right.
As Adam Smith would say, the hidden hand of the market would discipline businesses that mistreated employees. If someone stays with a cheapskate boss, it is for reasons of their own; they are always free to leave. The best workers will go to the best employers, because they will treat them better. As such, a labor union may get more for it's members than they would get otherwise, but they distort the market in fundamental ways, just as government distorts the market. Can anybody seriously argue that the U.S. auto industry is not dying because of unions? What has happened to the other union industries? Steel? Paper? Tool and Dye? Electronics? These are all considered dying industries, but nobody ever considers why. They are dying because they were all heavily unionized, and just can't compete in the marketplace. Granted, they could not compete with Chinese serf-labor or third world wages, but they could still compete in terms of better grade stuff, in terms of abilities to transport, to deliver fast, to provide better quality for better services. But they cannot do even that while union shops demand ridiculous salaries and set work parameters (such as limits on production) that unrealistically depress output.
As a result, the Smith's hidden hand has spoken (in a sort of ASL of the economy) and union industry has been dying.
Now you see where Howard Rich misses the point; unions are fundamentally flawed institutions by their very nature, and are against all concepts of property and fundamental rights.
Now, I'm not saying that unions haven't done some good; certainly, they ended the sweat shop and helped give us the 40 hour work week, but it can be argued that Mussolini made the trains run on time, too, but one hardly condones fascism as a social good. And yes, I am comparing trade unionism to fascism; unions were an integral part of both Mussolini's Fascism and Hitler's National Socialism. Yes, they did some good. Yes, they helped some people. But the price was too high in both instances, and unionism cannot be justified from either American philosophy or American Constitutionalism. It is an alien concept grafted onto American jurisprudence.
And, it should be pointed out, the abuses we were told about were less than the yellow journalism of the day suggested; Upton Sinclair romanticized and fictionalized those abuses as surely as Jack London did the north country (London, whose real name was John Chaney, only visited Alaska once; his stories were pure fiction. Oh, and he was a big supporter of unions and a socialist. As for Sinclair, he was an alcoholic graduate of Columbia who wrote his famous The Jungle after optaining a job for that very purpose. He ran for Congress on the Socialist ticket. He was very interested in psychic phonomena. One must doubt the veracity of his muckracking work.) The Progressives and the labor unions had every reason to rewrite history, to make things worse than they were. Remember, every employee of "Robber Baron" employers was also a consumer, and could just as easily have boycotted products from bad companies.
When we think of the Robber Baron era, we think of social darwinism and laissez faire capitalism. Social darwinism was a product of the left, it should be pointed out, and the faire capitalism has a more modern name of corporatism. This is purposely misleading. G.K. Chesterton, for example, advocated something called Distributism, which was capitalism without government backing big corporations. The reality is the abuses of big business occur in partnership with big government. And the myriad fingers of the welfare state substitute for private charitable initiatives - something that worked fine until the Progressives handed the job to the state.
Feudalism was born when the Roman Emperor Diocletian restricted the movements of farmers and tradesmen. Prior to Diocletian Roman citizens were free to go where they liked and pursue whatever interests they wished, but a dearth farmers and other tradesmen (because everyone wanted on the dole in Rome) led Diocletian to issue edicts forcing people to remain where they were born and to work in the trade of their fathers. Essentially, what the NLRB has done is create a corporate feudalism; a company cannot relocate, but must locate in places the government deems suitable. This is the modern feudalism.
And anyone wanting to work in certain fields must join a union. We have card-check, where unions are given information on who opposes unionization, for example. Unionism promotes modern feudalism as surely as Diocletian promoted the old in Rome.
Rome fell, and part of the reason was this feudalism, this ossification of class and status. Will American unionism lead to anything different?
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 5:59 AM
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