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Who Screws Labor?
Brad Plumer and Chris Bowers both seem to think that Democrats don't pay enough attention to the needs of the labor movement. I was going to explain that this is kind of off track, but Nathan Newman who bows to none in his pro-labor advocacy got it right:
No, in this case, Bowers first impulse is right. The problem here is not with the Democratic leadership but with its non-labor base of voters, who don't understand the issues and thus don't campaign hard to educate their fellow voters. The ongoing union-busting in the airline industry has gone barely unmentioned by most liberal blogs and one outrage after another comes down from the National Labor Relations Board without comment. If similar decisions were happening on abortion or race, it wouldn't be blogged from the far ends of liberal opinion outlets, but most liberals just don't give a damn.I should say, though, that I think this is a change for the better that's already under way here. Certainly the lefties at The Nation like unions just fine. The American Prospect's editor at large, Harold Meyerson, writes all the time about unions and is quite the expert on the subject. Even better, he's been a regular columnist at The Washington Post for the past couple of years now. More surprisingly, even the even the liberal New Republic waxed eloquent about the joys of unions a couple of weeks ago, prompting Kevin Drum to agree and call for more people to pay attention.
No, the political leaders (who need labor help at elections) are actually ahead of much of the base on core labor issues. It's the liberal opinion leaders, not the elected ones, who need to clean up their act and take labor issues more seriously on a day-to-day basis.
About a week and a half ago, I was busy castigating MoveOn.org for failing to demonstrate more pomo liberal / labor liberal solidarity by getting involved in the Social Security fight only to quickly discover that MoveOn was about to announce its new partnership with the AFL-CIO. So the trends, I think, are pointing in the right direction, with people coming together and swiftly recognizing that the entire progressive community is facing a "hang together or hang separately" sort of situation here notwithstanding some disagreements about international trade. I believe that the DLC's Ed Kilgore even chimed in with an "amen" after the TNR piece, so there's really no one left outside the warm unioney embrace. Certainly I haven't caught wind of a good union-green blowup for several years now.
Now normally I'm like a walking caricature of your stereotypical limosine liberal, but I hasten to point out that my Hollywood elite father is a member of the Writer's Guild of America East, AFL-CIO and we've always been a proud union family.
January 24, 2005 | Permalink
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» Whither labour? from Asymmetrical Information
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» Blog Labor, Not "About Labor" from Labor Blog
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Tracked on Jan 25, 2005 11:41:03 PM
Comments
Since I normally agree with Chris Bowers on just about nothing, it's nice to find something to agree with him about.
But now that we've enjoyed our kumbaya moment on the left, can we get back to arguing about Dean?
Posted by: Petey | Jan 24, 2005 4:14:02 PM
But, what does it mean to be "pro-labor"? Does it really make any sense to talk about these issues like labor is a monolithic bloc. The old manufacturing unions have radically different interests from the growing service unions, which in turn have different interests from the public sector unions that have increasing power in the labor movement. Take immigration issues: manufacturing and other old guard unions tend to oppose liberalizing immigration, but some of the service unions that organize illegal immigrants would find liberalization in the interests of them and many of their members. And then you have Andrew Stern dissing the teachers union line in talking about what needs to happen so public schools better serve his members' children (see: http://www.eduwonk.com/archives/2005_01_02_archive.html#110485379824854811) So, what does it mean to be pro-labor? If it just means protecting the rights to organize and related issues, that's one thing, but I think people tend to mean something else.
Posted by: flip | Jan 24, 2005 4:27:55 PM
"The old manufacturing unions have radically different interests from the growing service unions, which in turn have different interests from the public sector unions that have increasing power in the labor movement."
All very true.
"So, what does it mean to be pro-labor?"
Hopefully, it means focusing more of the party's energy on economic issues, and less on social issues.
Hopefully, it means the lefty blogosphere (outside of the oft-neglected Max) remembers the lunchbox core of the party it too often forgets.
Posted by: Petey | Jan 24, 2005 4:49:19 PM
While there are many differences within labor (immigration and globalization being two general areas), there are a lot of issues about which labor is united. Besides the right to organize, these include the minimum wage, protection of pension funds (which are often looted during buyouts), government support during contract disputes, and enforcement of workplace-safety and other labor laws. Non-specifically union issues always supported by labor include support for education and various other programs supporting labor and the lower middle class. And Social Security (which didn't used to be an issue).
Perhaps, after the New Democrats had succeeded in weakening the unions to the point that the Democratic Party itself was moribund, they realized that a problem had arisen. I don't remember them supporting unions much during the Clinton years.
BTW "Unions" and "labor" aren't quite synonymous. Some unions are satisfied to protect their own members without regard for non-union workers, so a pro-union stance isn't always enough.
One of Bowers points, not addressed by his critics IIRC, was simply that pro-choice, anti-union New Dems are not read out of the party the way anti-abortion, pro-union Dems are. An overstatement, but lots of Democrats (and as Newman says, especially in the middle class rank and file) are unembarassed about being virulently anti-union, whereas anti-abortion Democrats have had to learn to keep a low profile.
Kucinich and Wellstone are two Democrats who tended somewhat toward the labor side of the labor issues / social issues divide, BTW.
Posted by: John Emerson | Jan 24, 2005 4:52:36 PM
whereas anti-abortion Democrats have had to learn to keep a low profile.
Who's the Senate Minority Leader again? I completely agree about the labor stuff but this "small tent on abortion" thing must stop.
Posted by: Matt Weiner | Jan 24, 2005 5:14:20 PM
So, what does it mean to be pro-labor?
I thought it was code for anti-free trade.
Doesn't being pro-labor require you to be anti-NAFTA, etc? Are there any Dems calling for repeal of NAFTA?
Posted by: Al | Jan 24, 2005 5:22:02 PM
Who's the Senate Minority Leader again? I completely agree about the labor stuff but this "small tent on abortion" thing must stop."
It must stop where it's being overstated, as in the evergreen Bob Casey slur.
But it must also stop where it exists in practice as well. We do feel like a smaller tent on the issue than the other side.
We should take lessons from the GOP on its jujitsu in loudly proclaiming the beliefs of its base while at the same time giving prominent and deferential roles to dissenters like Schwarzenegger and Giulliani to let soft opposing believers know it's OK to come into the tent.
Posted by: Petey | Jan 24, 2005 5:41:28 PM
Al, isn't what you thought pretty stupid? Didn't people ahead of you -- for example, me -- mention some of the other things. But it's always nice to know what the Washinton Times means by pro-labor.
Matt, it's not imaginary. As Nathan said, the problem is more with the Democratic opinion people (and middle-class rank and file), and I often hear such people making egregiously loud anti-labor anti-union statements worthy of Al himself -- whereas I do not here the same level of intensity coming from anti-abortion Democrats.
Tom Friedman, who still calls himself a Democrat, praised Reagan's union-busting to the skies. He's a very extreme case, but a lot of the New Dems also became very nasty while they were pushing the party rightward.
Googling "pandering + 'Democratic Party'" gives you nice little anthologies of mixed winger/ New Dem attacks on the Old labor Dems.
Posted by: John Emerson | Jan 24, 2005 5:51:10 PM
"but a lot of the New Dems also became very nasty while they were pushing the party rightward"
The New Dem / Labor battles of the mid/late 80's had almost nothing to do with being hostile to labor's issues in the nation, and almost everything to do with a revolution toward labor's too prominent public role in the party.
Unlike today, labor had very bad fav/unfav ratings among the electorate, and the perception was that having a labor perceived candidate like Mondale or Gephardt as the face of the party was dragging it down to defeat.
But even those on the New Dem side of the divide weren't opposed to labor's issues, with the one eternal exception of free trade. It was always a question of stagecraft, not policy.
By the time of Clinton's nomination, those battles were mostly over, and labor felt part of the Clinton coalition. It's important to remember how important the health care fight was for labor, and while not narrowly about organized labor, how important Clinton's interest in the detail of economic progressivity was, with things like the EITC.
And labor benefited under Clinton. Real income at the bottom of the distribution curve went up for the first time in a generation. Organized labor's fav/unfav ratings finally rebounded from their long trough to the point where they are no longer a political liability today.
Posted by: Petey | Jan 24, 2005 6:09:42 PM
We seem to be having a bit of collective amnesia today. If the Democratic Party is finally going to let labor out of the doghouse, that's a good thing, but let's not say that nothing ever happened. This particular blog is the place where I remember seeing the most egregiously anti-labor and labor-oblivious statements -- coming not from Al, but from Democrats. One example is just people saying how things aren't really that bad because after all, abortion rights and a few other social issues are still OK.
But hey, if we have to pretend it didn't happen at all in order to quit doing it, cool.
No fault, nolo contendere, seal the court records -- done.
Posted by: John Emerson | Jan 24, 2005 6:38:05 PM
John, I completely agree about the labor thing. Lots of folks on our side just don't get it. So you're right that anti-abortion Dems have to keep a lower profile. And Petey, I think we're in agreement as well on the "jujitsu" thing. The Dems need to learn to get credit for their big tent--the GOP hasn't given any pro-choicer a national role as powerful as Reid's (see also the public humiliation of Specter). So I am not sure that there is any problem other than one of perception here; we feel like a smaller tent, because everyone keeps saying we are.
But this a sidelight--I agree with all the stuff about labor which is the main point here. I just jump on the "small tent" thing because I think such comments can exacerbate the problem of perception.
Posted by: Matt Weiner | Jan 24, 2005 7:11:38 PM
"The ongoing union-busting in the airline industry has gone barely unmentioned"
Well, I for one am not a defender of the union practices at the incumbent airlines, nor do I wish to rig the market against new entrants or new technologies to keep those practices going. If that's what's on offer, count me out.
Pro-labour means generous unemployment benefits, a right to healthcare and some consultation with the employer. It does not mean keeping your old job despite trade or technological change. That's the idea behind the Swedish unions (European unions in general) and its good enough for me.
Posted by: Otto | Jan 24, 2005 7:27:24 PM
Al, isn't what you thought pretty stupid? Didn't people ahead of you -- for example, me -- mention some of the other things.
OK, so there are some other things. But, seriously, isn't anti-free trade (or pro-fair trade, or whatever the PC leftie term is these days) a pretty big part of being pro-labor?
Do you really expect all the Dems who used to be free traders back in the Clinton heyday to suddenly become anti-free trade? (I realize that many Democrats -- like MY and KD -- expect fellow Dems who used to think that SS was a "looming fiscal crisis" to throw that belief overboard in favor of the new "there is no crisis" theme... I'm just asking if the same is expected in the free trade area.)
Posted by: Al | Jan 24, 2005 7:33:44 PM
"This particular blog is the place where I remember seeing the most egregiously anti-labor and labor-oblivious statements -- coming not from Al, but from Democrats."
I think you're slightly conflating two separate issues, John.
In addition to the 80's New Dem / Labor battles discussed above, which are long over and done with, there has also been in recent years an unrelated undercurrent of some labor hostility and lots of labor indifference coming from the self-identified "netroots".
Like you, I applaud sealing the court records on any such issues. There is no fundamental reason for them to continue.
Posted by: Petey | Jan 24, 2005 7:34:15 PM
Question: Which issue/positioning, more than any other, defines one's pro-labor bona fides? Answer: how vigorously one opposes trade deals. Why is it that the greatest pro-labor president in the country's history, one Franklin D. Roosevelt (please no arguments here, nobody's even a close second), was also adamant in his support of trade agreements? (because in addition to being a great politician he was a great leader). Unlike FDR, today's pro-labor Democrats (and Republicans) don't lead on labor issues, they pander.
Posted by: P. B. Almeida | Jan 24, 2005 7:35:23 PM
I've that feeling that a couple, maybe three, maybe more, things most significant are being moved about the table here. The idea that there are anti-labor democrats is shocking. How can it be that there are democrats who don't understand the role of labor in society? How is it that some such think we can have a just society without labor being fairly paid? Could this be those who are of liberal ilk on certain social issues but want to hire cheap domestic help and pay little for their lattes? Those who drive through decaying cities on their way downtown who can't remember when blue collars had good wages, owned their houses and kept them neat? Those who didn't understand why Gavin Newsom, a hotel owner, stood with the hotel workers? Maybe they are those we first began to notice around 1980 who went to public schools through university but didn't want to pay taxes for someone else's to do so.
And, looks like someone figured out some of the truth about some of the unions: they can't deliver the vote, the leadership may be selling out the members and the members often vote counter their own interest. Just like the rest of America, union members aren't very well informed. What difference do unions make? Very little. They are not really a factor.
Kind of like Pastor Niemoller's "First they came for the Jews .....", all seem together in this denial: cooked unemployment, illegal immigrant labor, love of the cheap import provided by offshore, but what about when it comes their turn? No problem when the blue collar jobs went, engineers jobs, aah, but when their's, the chemist's, the lawyer's, the doctor's go off shore; will they enjoy the savings quite so much?
Maybe none of these new democrats are old enough to remember what is like before. Perhaps it wise for them to take a look around, to look at other countries where the workers are kept down. See if they can find Aynnie's utopia. Hell, just go to Cleveland or Detroit, or for starters East Oakland or 16th and Mission in SF.
Posted by: ken melvin | Jan 24, 2005 7:45:09 PM
This point has been alluded to, but it bears emphasis: it isn't Democratic political leaders OR liberal opinion leaders who are anti-labor, it's (a substantial number of) Democratic rank-and-file.
I'm pretty sure this is true, though I don't have polling data at my fingertips. The main piece of evidence I can think of is the success of Republican governors in strongly blue states with strong public sector unions (eg, CA, NY, CT, MA). Anecdotally, my own experiences in white collar Blue America corroborate it, as do the comments on many liberal discussion boards.
I can only speculate as to why this is. Labor is such a small percentage of the labor force that it may be seen as a special interest, pursuing issues like trade that a lot of people don't care about. This perception may be exacerbated by the fact that the core labor issues--labor relations laws, labor standards laws--are in a long-term stalemate with neither labor nor management making major legislative gains in recent memory. Also, union members get things that nobody else gets--pensions, job security, time off, health insurance--and people are jealous. Also, the economic interests of non-unionized taxpayers are opposed to those of public sector unions.
Posted by: AF | Jan 24, 2005 7:48:10 PM
Otto,
I believe that when we speak of massive union-busting at the airlines we're speaking of things like US Airways trying to use bankruptcy court to abrogate existing contracts. These two sentences sum it up:
"Mitchell also is to rule on the airline's request to throw out the union contract covering the airline's mechanics and baggage handlers. US Airways wants to replace the contract with a less expensive one."
I think pro-labor means at the very minimum respecting existing contracts. Maybe "generous unemployment benefits, a right to healthcare and some consultation with the employer" would make that unnecessary, but we don't have that either.
Posted by: Matt Weiner | Jan 24, 2005 8:06:20 PM
Damn you Yglesias for placing me on the same hemisphere as Al, but I recall you being a free trader, and not a fair trader. You and Brad DeLong.
I am glad to learn otherwise.
Posted by: jerry | Jan 24, 2005 8:24:35 PM
We are all in the same boat. Manufacturing has been slaughtered by imports from developping economies where you can get workers for a ten dollars a day, IT and various other technical lines of work are going to get slaughtered by outsourcing.
Posted by: Don Quijote | Jan 24, 2005 8:50:39 PM
Good post, Ken Melvin. I also remember a time when Americans were concerned with each other. Americans need to stand up for each other again, because no one else is going to do it. Chinese have other Chinese to stand up for them, Indians, etc.
Ultimately, we are all in the same boat and the sooner we realize it the better.
Posted by: la | Jan 24, 2005 9:02:26 PM
Wow I just happened upon a great new Indian blogger, Mitra Igolitondli!
Posted by: jerry | Jan 24, 2005 9:07:16 PM
"Maybe none of these new democrats are old enough to remember what is like before"
I remember what it was like before, in the 50-70's when labor was respected, had a voice at the table, and the Party supported them.
It was real fucking good.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Jan 24, 2005 10:18:43 PM
Matt, bankruptcy court is all about throwing out existing contracts. The unions aren't being singled out for particular screwage in this case.
Posted by: Jake McGuire | Jan 25, 2005 12:02:19 AM
Damn you Yglesias for placing me on the same hemisphere as Al, but I recall you being a free trader, and not a fair trader. You and Brad DeLong.
I am glad to learn otherwise.
Well, that's really the crux of the matter. I saw Matthew say Dems should be more pro-labor. I did NOT see him say that Dems should be fairtraders rather than freetraders.
How 'bout it Matt?
Posted by: Al | Jan 25, 2005 12:39:26 AM
I and others like me are screwing Labor. We are seduced by the comforts bought on the backs of the Old Labor, who fought not only for the right of contract negotiated benefits, but to codify “decent” behavior in our laws.
In my youth I worked in a union covered job and went to college at night. As I progressed from community college to four degree program I “progressed” in occupations from hourly worker to one who was an “exempt” employee.
The labor movement itself is partly to blame. Like generals who lose by fighting the last war, organized labor is stuck on wages and benefits in the U.S. By having the most important gains of the early movement made available to all by federal law they lost their best recruiting tools.
Thus the “right to work” states were able to stop labor organizing simply by pointing out to prospective members that unions would only take their dues and send the money elsewhere; working hours, overtime, and breaks were all guaranteed by law.
Manufacturing jobs moved from the North to the South, then to Mexico, some to Korea and other parts of Asia, and most recently to China. Organized Labor did not follow. While some organizations called themselves international that only meant they had affiliations in Canada.
Unions did not try to organize in unfriendly nations. They did not try to influence U.S. foreign policy to try and level the playing field by encouraging other governments to give their workers the basic rights we have.
Technological changes cause economic upheavals. The economies eventually sort things out and things are changed forever. We deregulated the airline and trucking industries. In both instances the majority of the companies we had at the time of deregulation have disappeared. There are now fewer players in each industry and union membership in both industries has decreased dramatically.
In global trade, today’s near instantaneous communications is the deregulatory agency. The result should be that those economies that can shed existing encumbrances (high production costs) or build from no encumbrances (no health and safety laws, lower cost of living, non-private health care costs) will grow at the expense of existing leaders who cannot adapt.
Unless Labor makes itself international it will cease to exist domestically.
Posted by: laxgdad | Jan 25, 2005 2:55:31 AM
I am pretty well convinced (and I'm a union member and value my union!) that the entire labor union model of organizing labor against management is based on a model that is fundmentally poor; its akin to having a single political party in a nation, where all officeholders are forbidden by law to be members of the party, but all citizens are required to be members, and instead of electing officeholders, the citizens use the party as a collective agency to try to lobby the officeholders, who are a self-selecting aristocracy, into adopting friendly policies.
Except that sometimes its even weirder, and in effect its as if all of the Americas had one political party, which collectively lobbied against self-perpetuating autocracies in each country in the hemisphere.
The one prescriptive area I think Marx had vaguely right is that the solution is control by labor of the means of production. The problem with Marxism is that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" exercised direct control through the central authority of the state, rather than allowing workers real autonomy in directly and democratically controlling their own firms.
I think democratic control of firms by all persons employed in them, with a model where labor rents capital rather than vice versa, is the best model to pursue, rather than the labor union model which actually perpetuates a division between "workers" and "management", both of which are laborers, and reinforces the dependency of the latter on the whims of capital owners.
OTOH, I also think that the labor union model is a whole lot better than what much of the right prefers, which is capital autocracy.
Posted by: cmdicely | Jan 25, 2005 2:56:38 AM
Do you really expect all the Dems who used to be free traders back in the Clinton heyday to suddenly become anti-free trade?
Even though NAFTA was sold as including "fair trade" protections, despite being called a "free trade" agreement, I don't remember all that many Democrats other than Clinton being for it.
Democrats, for the largest part, weren't even moderate free traders back in the Clinton heyday, so they wouldn't need much change to become fair traders now.
(OTOH, I've become less convinced than I was that free trade agreements would be a useful wedge from which to negotiate fair trade agreements, so I guess I'm an example of a Democrat who was at least "free trade tolerant" at the time of NAFTA who has become a pretty committed "fair trader").
Posted by: cmdicely | Jan 25, 2005 3:01:07 AM
Somewhat off topic in that it's not about labor, although it is about the future of the Democratic Party.
I just caught a great panel with a bunch of really smart folks about the future direction the party should take.
It's about an hour and a half.
Steve Jarding
Harrison Hickman
Jim Jordan
Donna Brazile
Brad Carson
rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/c04/c04_rwh010105.rm
(Try opening it directly in realplayer, if it won't work in your browser.)
Definitely worth catching if you're interested in strategery. And I've said it before and I'll say it again, there should be only three names in play for '08:
Edwards, Warner, and Richardson.
Posted by: Petey | Jan 25, 2005 2:00:48 PM
Al wrote:
Do you really expect all the Dems who used to be free traders back in the Clinton heyday to suddenly become anti-free trade? (I realize that many Democrats -- like MY and KD -- expect fellow Dems who used to think that SS was a "looming fiscal crisis" to throw that belief overboard in favor of the new "there is no crisis" theme... I'm just asking if the same is expected in the free trade area.)
Well that does seem to be the trend although to be fair, Clinton was never really a “free trader” per se. A lot of people forgot that despite signing onto managed trade agreements like NAFTA and GATT, the Clinton administration imposed steel tariffs of about 60 percent in its first year (which were far worse than the ones Bush supported) as well as protection for other special industries. While Bush imposed tariffs on shrimp, the Clinton administration imposed them on bananas and so on. I think it’s fairer to say that most politicians tend to be managed traders in that they support a combination of restrictions and liberalization on trade but differ in the proportions and the specifics as to where to restrict trade and where to liberalize it.
Posted by: Thorley Winston | Jan 25, 2005 3:15:57 PM
Good post, Ken Melvin. I also remember a time when Americans were concerned with each other. Americans need to stand up for each other again, because no one else is going to do it. Chinese have other Chinese to stand up for them, Indians, etc.
Gaack. Yeah, let's erect more trade barriers to benefit unionized Americans and let the world's poor people fend the best they can. If that's the liberal position, forget it.
Far more than charity, what the countries affected by the Tsunami need is relief from trade barriers to textile and shrimp imports. And they don't need it just because of the Tsunami, they needed it before then because they were desperately poor, and shrimp and textiles represent opportunities for them to become less deperately poor.
If being labor-friendly means adopting policies that help US workers adapt to the dynamics of the global marketplace, great, I'm all in favor. If it means trying to preserve the status quo at the expense of walling out goods and services produced by the world's poorest people, count me out.
Posted by: mw | Jan 25, 2005 5:23:49 PM
being labor-friendly means adopting policies that help US workers adapt to the dynamics of the global marketplace, great, I'm all in favor.
Uh, yeah. Be sure and spell out exactly what these policies are that are going to help us "adapt to the dynamics of the global marketplace". I'm sure this is going to soooooo palatable.
Posted by: absynthe | Jan 25, 2005 5:28:48 PM
As far as free trade helping the world's poor, sometimes it happens. In Mexico and Brazil it hasn't, though; no progress there in the last decade, since they're now competing with Indonesia and Bangla Desh.
Besides the tried-and-true "helping the world's poor" model, everyone should also consider the "wage-scale race to the bottom" model -- a race which won't stop until there are no unemployed anywhere in the world. (This can also be called the "globalization of the resrve army of the unemployed" model.)
Under the latter model, the beneficiaries are capital, management, employers, and a few high-skilled workers and workers in fixed-location enterprises. The "helping the poor" part of the program stalls at a rather level, and is generally differed until some distant future.
Liberal globalizers repeat their slogan as if it were a magic spell, and I know that I'm not going to stop them.
Posted by: John Emerson | Jan 25, 2005 7:45:08 PM
I'd like to get the cheap shot of acknowledging the obvious injustice of having no unemployed people in the poorest countries of the world, and agree that this is something that we must carefully guard against.
And in your example of Mexico and Brazil vs. India and Bangladesh, aren't the poor being helped? After all, India and Bangladesh are far poorer than Mexico or Brazil...
It's also pretty clear that the "race to the bottom" does not happen within the US or the EU, both of which have very few restrictions on internal economic activity; substantial geographical differences in income occur in both places. Do immigration restrictions across national boundaries make the math that much different?
Posted by: Jake McGuire | Jan 25, 2005 9:27:49 PM
Uh, yeah. Be sure and spell out exactly what these policies are that are going to help us "adapt to the dynamics of the global marketplace". I'm sure this is going to soooooo palatable.
Well, for example -- reorientation of higher education toward lifelong learning, better unemployment protection, decoupling of healthcare from employment (you don't suddenly start having to pay out of pocket for your kids to go to school if you lose your job--you shouldn't have to pay out of pocket for them to go to the doctor either). Though, of course, unemployment can't be made so comfy that people settle in for a Euro-style long-term stay on the dole.
But it's a change in social attitudes as well as government policies that is already well underway. And, in fact, the American people are well ahead of organized labor on this, I think. People no longer expect to graduate high school, join a union, and work for a single company or even in a single industry until retirement (any more than they expect to graduate college and do white collar work for a single employer until retirement).
Posted by: mw | Jan 26, 2005 7:28:15 AM
Besides the tried-and-true "helping the world's poor" model, everyone should also consider the "wage-scale race to the bottom" model -- a race which won't stop until there are no unemployed anywhere in the world. (This can also be called the "globalization of the resrve army of the unemployed" model.)
But 'the race to the bottom' doesn't happen -- during this period of globalization and outsourcing the average wages in the US have continued to increase even as poverty has decreased for hundreds of millions in Asia.
Under the latter model, the beneficiaries are capital, management, employers, and a few high-skilled workers and workers in fixed-location enterprises.
If the benefits were only to a few, then overall wages in the US would have been falling -- but they haven't been. There are a not a few, but large numbers of high-skilled workers, managers, and workers whose jobs cannot be outsourced (many of the latter are high skilled as well -- physicians, for example, but the building trades have been doing very well also).
The "helping the poor" part of the program stalls at a rather level, and is generally differed until some distant future.
The helping the poor hasn't been deferred, it has been ongoing due to global trade and needs to be expanded by removing more barriers (cotton, sugar, shrimp...)
Posted by: mw | Jan 26, 2005 8:19:28 AM
mw,
I am not sure what your "overall wage" term means; however, according to the NYT, Despite Times of Prosperity, Many Feeling a Pinch:
In fact, adjusted for inflation, the median worker in the 25-to-34 age group earned 13 percent less in 1998 (the latest data available) than the median worker of the same age in 1973.Median workers in the 35-to-44 age group earned about 9 percent less in 1998 than their counterparts 25 years earlier.
...
To take but one example, the median income of a male aged 35 to 44 in 1988 was $39,331. In 1998, the equivalent man, now 10 years older, took in $300 less. To match the gains typically made in the 1950s and 1960s, the median income should have been approximately $51,000 by 1998.
Posted by: abb1 | Jan 26, 2005 10:06:47 AM
I am not sure what your "overall wage" term means; however, according to the NYT, Despite Times of Prosperity, Many Feeling a Pinch:
In fact, adjusted for inflation, the median worker in the 25-to-34 age group earned 13 percent less in 1998 (the latest data available) than the median worker of the same age in 1973.
The problem with statistics like that is that they're based on bogus inflation estimates so that they don't even pass a common sense 'sniff' test. For example, compared to 1973, would you say that median income American families in 1998:
- Were less likely to own 2 or more cars?
- Had smaller rather than larger homes?
- Were less likely to have 2 or more bathrooms?
- Were less likely to have air conditioning?
- Ate out in restaurants less often?
- Went to see movies less often?
- Were less likely to travel by air?
- Were less likely to have attended college or completed college degrees?
- Were less likely to eat fresh fruits and vegetables?
- Owned fewer: televisions, shoes ... any consumer good you'd care to name.
The answer is obviously no to all of the above. I remember 1973 quite clearly -- my dad was college educated and had a white-collar, managerial job. In 1973 we lived in a 1200 sq foot, 1 bath brick ranch. We had just recently acquired a second car (a hand-me-down from the grandparents). I had never been on an airplane (nor had any of my siblings). My mother had only recently stopped hanging clothes out on the line. And that leaves out all the things that the median family now owns that were exhorbinantly expensive or not available at any price in 1973 (DVD players, cell-phones, personal computers, cable TV, internet connections, microwaves, portable stereos ... hell, even pocket calculators--remember the 'Bomar Brain' that'd be about $300 in 2005 dollars). I could go on (and if you're old enough, so could you).
The point is that the idea that the average American family is worse off now that 25 or 30 years ago is laughable. And for that reason, I'm not willing to accept the idea that we need to tip trade policy in favor of further enriching the average American at the expense of keeping more of the world in poverty -- are you? Really?
Posted by: mw | Jan 26, 2005 1:25:34 PM
