Thursday, May 3, 2012
Marina Sitrin: Imagining a New General Strike
April 26, 2012
Marina Sitrin: Imagining a New General Strike
The call for a general strike on May 1 should not be solely about work, argues Marina Sitrin, a postdoctoral fellow at CUNY specializing in global mass movements. Instead, it should reshape our ideas about how society is built, as Sitrin explains in this video, by asking hard questions about class, consumption, work and society.
Who Are the Extractive Elites?
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson
Key to our argument in Why Nations Fail is the
idea that elites, when sufficiently political powerful, will often
support economic institutions and policies inimical to sustained
economic growth. Sometimes they will block new technologies; sometimes
they will create a non-level playing field preventing the rest of
society from realizing their economic potential; sometimes they will
simply violate others’ rights destroying investment and innovation
incentives.
An interesting article in The Economist’s Buttonwood column asks: Who are these rapacious elites in today’s Western economies?
Buttonwood suggests that two plausible candidates are too-big-fail huge-risk-taking bankers and public sector employees with their cushy jobs, which they protect using their power as voters and sometimes through public-sector unions.
Banks, which have huge political clout, as the world witnessed not only in the midst of the 2008-2009 crisis but again in the European debt restructuring debacle of the last two years, are a great candidate indeed. Buttonwood questions whether they have really been an impediment to prosperity. The answer is probably yes: excessive risk-taking by the banks created lots of economic distortions and is in part responsible for the crisis. The inflated salaries in the banking industry may have also damaged the economy by attracting a lot of the talent that should have gone into more innovative activities (as suggested by the evidence in this paper and this paper).
But what about public-sector employees? What about unions? Don’t they, as Buttonwood suggests, also exercise their power to block new technologies and create similar distortions?
On the face of it, this is a plausible hypothesis. In democratic societies organized groups can wield power, and it is only natural that they will exploit this power to their benefit — and to the great detrimental of others. Muncur Olson, in fact, suggested in The Rise and Decline of Nations such groups as the most important threat to the economic longevity of Western democracies. In his magisterial Levers of Riches, Joel Mokyr uses the Luddites destroying textile machines as the exemplar of the resistance against the creative destruction wrought by new technologies. More recently, the print unions on Fleet Street had blocked the introduction of the superior offset litho printing process until their defeat by Rupert Murdoch’s News International in 1987. And of course unions do create a non-level playing field, advantaging their members at the expense of those left out.
So perhaps unions in general and public-sector unions in particular are the new extractive elites resisting technological change.
But here is the problem with this perspective. In most cases, unions and workers, even if they appear politically powerful, don’t seem to be able to stop the introduction of new technologies. Luddites feature in history books not as successful blockers, but to illustrate the futility of standing on the path of new technologies. Print unions did delay the introduction of superior printing technology but were ultimately cast aside.
And there is a good reason for this. The power of the Luddites in 19th-century Britain was limited — certainly compared to the near-absolute power of the Russian and Austria-Hungarian elites who strenuously resisted the introduction of factories and railways. Unions can mobilize their members to strike and can act as a powerful interest group, but their power is also probably limited relative to those of the very rich both in democratic and non-democratic societies — and in the US, the power of unions was probably seriously, perhaps irreversibly, damaged by Ronald Reagan’s victory over the air traffic controllers’ strike.
In consequence, in the US today, the fear is not that unions will take over the political process, but that the rich elite — including but not limited to the banking elites — will and in fact have already done so.
This makes us believe that, though the unions, when they have the power, can also act as extractively as other groups in pursuing their interests at the expense of the rest of us, they are not the main elites threatening the inclusivity of Western institutions.
That being said, it is probably true that unions have been in a more rent-seeking mode in the second half of the 20th century compared to their pivotal role in the development of inclusive institutions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, the story of democracy in Britain would have likely been very different without the labor movement, which mobilized the disenfranchised to demand voting rights for all. Similarly, the US labor movement played a central role in giving voice to workers and improving working conditions. Is anything different today? The answer is not clear. But one possibility is that in fighting for broad-based issues such as democracy or limits on harsh, even coercive, working conditions for most workers, the labor movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries was both more effective and more clearly on the side of greater inclusivity in economic and political institutions. This may have changed once unions’ demands shifted to higher wages, more generous health insurance and better pensions for their narrow membership.
On the other hand, some also argue that a strong labor movement is even more necessary today as a counterweight against the creeping political inequality in favor of the very wealthy and the politically-connected corporations. We think that some sort of organization to counterbalance the political power of the mega-rich is indeed necessary. Whether this role can be — and should be — played by unions is a question that requires more thought and research (i.e., we don’t know the answer).
An interesting article in The Economist’s Buttonwood column asks: Who are these rapacious elites in today’s Western economies?
Buttonwood suggests that two plausible candidates are too-big-fail huge-risk-taking bankers and public sector employees with their cushy jobs, which they protect using their power as voters and sometimes through public-sector unions.
Banks, which have huge political clout, as the world witnessed not only in the midst of the 2008-2009 crisis but again in the European debt restructuring debacle of the last two years, are a great candidate indeed. Buttonwood questions whether they have really been an impediment to prosperity. The answer is probably yes: excessive risk-taking by the banks created lots of economic distortions and is in part responsible for the crisis. The inflated salaries in the banking industry may have also damaged the economy by attracting a lot of the talent that should have gone into more innovative activities (as suggested by the evidence in this paper and this paper).
But what about public-sector employees? What about unions? Don’t they, as Buttonwood suggests, also exercise their power to block new technologies and create similar distortions?
On the face of it, this is a plausible hypothesis. In democratic societies organized groups can wield power, and it is only natural that they will exploit this power to their benefit — and to the great detrimental of others. Muncur Olson, in fact, suggested in The Rise and Decline of Nations such groups as the most important threat to the economic longevity of Western democracies. In his magisterial Levers of Riches, Joel Mokyr uses the Luddites destroying textile machines as the exemplar of the resistance against the creative destruction wrought by new technologies. More recently, the print unions on Fleet Street had blocked the introduction of the superior offset litho printing process until their defeat by Rupert Murdoch’s News International in 1987. And of course unions do create a non-level playing field, advantaging their members at the expense of those left out.
So perhaps unions in general and public-sector unions in particular are the new extractive elites resisting technological change.
But here is the problem with this perspective. In most cases, unions and workers, even if they appear politically powerful, don’t seem to be able to stop the introduction of new technologies. Luddites feature in history books not as successful blockers, but to illustrate the futility of standing on the path of new technologies. Print unions did delay the introduction of superior printing technology but were ultimately cast aside.
And there is a good reason for this. The power of the Luddites in 19th-century Britain was limited — certainly compared to the near-absolute power of the Russian and Austria-Hungarian elites who strenuously resisted the introduction of factories and railways. Unions can mobilize their members to strike and can act as a powerful interest group, but their power is also probably limited relative to those of the very rich both in democratic and non-democratic societies — and in the US, the power of unions was probably seriously, perhaps irreversibly, damaged by Ronald Reagan’s victory over the air traffic controllers’ strike.
In consequence, in the US today, the fear is not that unions will take over the political process, but that the rich elite — including but not limited to the banking elites — will and in fact have already done so.
This makes us believe that, though the unions, when they have the power, can also act as extractively as other groups in pursuing their interests at the expense of the rest of us, they are not the main elites threatening the inclusivity of Western institutions.
That being said, it is probably true that unions have been in a more rent-seeking mode in the second half of the 20th century compared to their pivotal role in the development of inclusive institutions in the 19th and early 20th centuries. For example, the story of democracy in Britain would have likely been very different without the labor movement, which mobilized the disenfranchised to demand voting rights for all. Similarly, the US labor movement played a central role in giving voice to workers and improving working conditions. Is anything different today? The answer is not clear. But one possibility is that in fighting for broad-based issues such as democracy or limits on harsh, even coercive, working conditions for most workers, the labor movement in the 19th and early 20th centuries was both more effective and more clearly on the side of greater inclusivity in economic and political institutions. This may have changed once unions’ demands shifted to higher wages, more generous health insurance and better pensions for their narrow membership.
On the other hand, some also argue that a strong labor movement is even more necessary today as a counterweight against the creeping political inequality in favor of the very wealthy and the politically-connected corporations. We think that some sort of organization to counterbalance the political power of the mega-rich is indeed necessary. Whether this role can be — and should be — played by unions is a question that requires more thought and research (i.e., we don’t know the answer).
Robert Spencer denounces pro-honor killing Dearborn Imam
Robert Spencer eviscerates the hypocrisy of the pro-honor killing speakers at the stealth fundraiser hastily put together by Islamic supremacists to smear our human rights conference.
We are uploading all of the speeches up of every remarkable voice that spoke at our Jessica Mokdad Human Rights conference on honor killing. We filmed in HD, so processing takes much longer. Videographer David Miles is on it.
VIDEO: Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference (highlights) Freedom vs Tyranny
VIDEO Michael Coren at Jessica Mokdad Human Rights Conference in Dearborn: Interview Pamela Geller
Photos from The Jessica Mokdad Anti-Honor Killing Conference
Today We are Fighting for Freedom for All in Dearborn, Michigan
Full video of the conference will be available shortly.
Friendly Advice to CNN -- Change Everything
We started at almost nothing on Current, but we have been steadily improving our numbers. Why are we getting traction? Because people want an alternative -- the real news. So, I should just stay quiet and let CNN drive off that cliff. By the way, when I catch Erin Burnett -- which is not that far off because I'm beginning to see her in the distance in the demos -- everyone will know it. Who knows, that might be the event that precipitates CNN re-thinking their entire model. Imagine if a network that started at nearly nothing catches CNN within a year.
But I am not going to wait until then to give them some friendly advice. I know they won't perceive it that way, but I am actually trying to help them. So here it is -- for the love of God, stop doing "he said, she said" crap that doesn't actually deliver the news to anyone. Democrats said this and Republicans said that -- who cares? What is the reality?! Your job is supposed to be to bring us facts, not what official spokespeople told you in their press releases and talking points.
The problem is that CNN doesn't have the courage to do this. They're afraid it might offend some folks if you tell the American people reality. I want to be clear; I'm not saying they should give us opinion. There's plenty of that in other parts of cable, including my show. They're never going to out-opinion me. But if Mitt Romney says his proposal balances the budget, well, why don't you crunch the numbers and tell us whether that's true or not? Of course the reality is that it creates trillions of dollars in deficits just so that the rich can have more tax cuts. But CNN would consider reporting those facts as being biased.
If the Giants play the Cowboys and beat them silly, it is not biased to report that they won. You don't have a pro-Giants bias if you report the score. I'm a progressive but I have no interest in CNN skewing issues in favor of Democrats. By all means, call them out just as aggressively. The Democratic Party takes huge amounts of cash from corporations and unions to vote a certain way. My God, CNN doesn't even cover the role of money in politics. They take politicians at their word. Are you kidding? It seems like the people who work at CNN are the last people in the country who actually trust our politicians. Congressional approval ratings were recently at 11 percent. How well do you think you're going to do on television if you're sucking up to those guys?
By the way, following along with artificially created Fox News scandals doesn't give you balance. It makes you sad and pathetic. There are plenty of real Democratic scandals without falling into the rubbish Fox talks about. How much money does Chuck Schumer take from Wall Street? What favors does he give them in return? Why do Democratic leaders keep writing legislation rigged against the Internet -- could it have something to do with the tremendous amount of cash they take from Hollywood companies? Why does President Obama get a free pass on following George Bush's civil liberties abuses like warrantless wiretapping and indefinite detentions?
In other words, do your job -- report the news. The real news, not dueling talking points and manufactured controversies. My God, where is your investigative team? What's the last story you broke? Of course, the reality is that you don't want to break stories about Washington because that might offend some people. What kind of a so-called news operation is this afraid of their own shadow? "Oh my God, what if we offended someone in power. They might not come on our shows anymore and they might call us biased." Or they might call you journalists.
Sam Donaldson was on our show a long time ago and told us a really cool story about his old boss at ABC News, Roone Arledge. He said when he was covering the Reagan White House (and later the Clinton White House, too), whenever the administration called up to complain about him, Arledge would give him a raise. How far away from that model are we now? When politicians call up to complain now, "news" executives wet themselves in fear. Stand up to them! Do journalism! Challenge government!
And you know something amazing might happen -- people might actually watch you again.
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