UNIONS VERSUS THE WORKERS

A good email from Australian philosopher/economist Rafe Champion below:

"With John Howard's recent victory in the elections, the stage is set in Australia for a re-run of all the arguments about the use and abuse of trade union [labor union] power and influence. As I write, I hear the voice of former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke pleading to save the priviliges of the trade unions on the specious argument that giving the workers more power over their own pay and conditions is confrontational and divisive!

The late Bill Hutt is one of the most important writers on these matters and some of his work can be found on line. For an overview of Hutt's career, see here. Below is an extract from Hutt's book on collective bargaining where he draws upon statements from the working class leaders to indicate that the combinations of workers at that time generally disadvantaged the mass of workers. He wrote:

"This should not allow the modern student to ignore the fact that the interests of the unionists were almost universally antagonistic to those of the labouring masses. Had historians of the trade-union movement been orthodox economic theorists they might have laid the strongest emphasis on this point. As it happens, however, they have been practically without exception persons with an undisguised hostility to orthodox theory; and this may account for their failure to stress what might have struck other economists most forcibly. The Webbs frankly admit the frequent existence of monopolistic tendencies on the part of unions, but the general impression they leave is misleading for they have obviously written as union advocates."

One of Hutt's major books was The Strike Threat System which is the history of the trade union use of strike action to undermine the rule of law and disadvantage the poor and indeed all of society apart from the favoured few in the most powerful and reckless unions. The paradigm case in Australia is the waterside workers (longshoremen). Central to the trade union defence is the myth of the "bitter struggle" that workers had to fight against capital and management to get a fair go. This myth is subjected to devastating historical appraisal in this chapter from the book. The chapter begins with some turgid prose, but do persist!"

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ELSEWHERE

I have just put up on LEFTISTS AS ELITISTS a few comments about the British journalist who has recently called for President Bush to be assassinated.

The Left have recently put out another "survey" that purports to prove that GOP voters live in fantasyland and Kerry supporters are realists. Evangelical Outpost demolishes it nicely. The whole thing was blatantly rigged of course. Distortion is just normal for the Left. The straight truth would be too awkward for them.

A ringing endorsement of GWB from a newspaper in the heart of the Left Coast. A small excerpt: "This election year, America is at a crossroads. Under the current president, we forwarded America's duty to both beat back the forces that would end democracy here and abroad and sent a strong message to those who would destroy our way of life: "Don't tread on me.'"

If anyone is an intellectual, it would have to be David Gelernter (He is a professor of computer science at Yale University, among other things, and in German/Yiddish his surname even means "learned"!) yet he is voting for GWB because he sees Bush as having a sense of humour where Kerry has none. He sees humour as humanizing and as a sign of genuine humility.

Fun: "A report recommending English become a compulsory subject in all schools in France has raised the ire of teachers' unions and supporters of linguistic diversity. Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin is said to back the proposal, which was put forward a week ago by a commission looking into the future of France's education system, according to Le Monde. Such a move would help French pupils catch up with their counterparts in other EU countries who enjoy a big lead in using what the commission's report called the language of "international communication"."

Australia's Cardinal Pell sums it up: "Recently, I was interviewed on radio about the role of religion in public life. The suggestion seemed to be that if you were irreligious, that was okay, that being secular meant you were fair and reasonable, but religious principles should not intrude into public affairs. I pointed out that Christians had the same rights as anyone else in our democracy and could propose whatever policies they chose. If people didn't like their policies, they could vote for another party. The interviewer professed to be scared of the prospect of Christian political parties, although he didn't say why. He then moved on to George W. Bush who, he claimed, not only set out to do God's will, but claimed to be given special godly instructions or revelations. I do not claim that all President Bush's policies are prudent and right. They may or may not be. But he must not be condemned simply because he's a serious Christian. The interviewer conceded there was no evidence that Bush was claiming to hear voices, and lapsed into silence when I explained that for me, it was a consolation if a world leader was trying to do God's will rather than setting out to do whatever he could get away with. Isn't it better, I asked, to have a leader who believes that in the next life, he will have to answer for the decisions he makes in the here and now?"

Satanic Presbyterians: "I am neither an 'end-timer' nor a messianic, but these groups do have the most accurate way of describing recent events. And who knows, maybe they're right. This week, a group that does not follow the core precepts of Christianity yet call themselves 'Christians' had a friendly meeting with one of the most heinous Islamist terror groups on the planet. Those people who call themselves 'Christian' yet ignore a very core belief of that religion are the Presbyterians, and the group they had a comfy sit-down with is Hizbollah."

Although the U.S. Congress defeated the U.S. military in Vietnam, Lancelot Finn has got a good argument to say that the larger strategic objectives of that war were still attained. In the big picture, America did win.

A good comment on the recent conservative victory in the Australian elections: "I was once a bit concerned about bookshops flooded with tottering towers of tomes attacking the Howard Government and the Bush Administration. I have since come to the conclusion that seeing large bundles of them unopened, unsold and unread in the bookshops might actually be the best possible outcome".

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH and SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here

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That power only, not principles, is what matters to Leftists is perfectly shown by the Kerry campaign. They have put up a man whose policies seem to be 99% the same as George Bush's even though they have previously disagreed violently with those policies. "Whatever it takes" is their rule.

Leftists are phonies. For most of them all that they want is to sound good. They don't care about doing good. That's why they do so much harm. They don't really care what the results of their policies are as long as they are seen as having good intentions

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