Shakedown Socialism

by Oleg Atbashian

  "In every election cycle," he further told me, "union members were instructed who to vote for and called upon to volunteer. I supervised crews that made election signs to be installed at the union's direction. Harmless enough, but as a supervisor I learned about what they used to call 'other activities.' That included members going through legal records and files of prison inmates to register felons. Others were checking real estate records, recording people who left the state to replenish the ranks of phantom voters, and using vacant houses as their addresses. Yet others were combing obituaries for the newly deceased. If the quotas remained unfilled, they searched older death records, sending scores of 120 year-old apparitions to vote.

  Guess who they voted for?" Sure enough, the candidates have always been pro-union Democrats with an agenda to pay back their benefactors with government pork at the expense of the taxpayers.

  My friend assured me that the majority of union members were decent people, but the methods of the union higher-ups included intimidation, coercion, and stealth.

  "They tell you what kind of a job you can have and where that job can be. They set the rate of pay and dictate how much you will pay them for the privilege. They tell you who to vote for and are extremely politically active. All in the name of the American Worker."

  Eyewitness accounts are supported by mind-boggling official statistics: "In 2005, upwards of 12,000 UAW 'workers' were paid not to work. The Big Three and their suppliers paid billions to keep downsized UAW members on the payroll as part of a UAW contract. One UAW member, Ken Pool, said he would show up to work and then do crossword puzzles. He earned more than $31 an hour, plus benefits. Higher costs and legacy costs for retirees were transferred to consumers."

  Having worked in various corporate offices in New York, I noticed a sizeable wage gap between those working in the financial sector and all the rest. Contrary to the caricature portrayal in the media, it wasn't just the CEOs giving themselves bonuses; people on even the lowest levels had higher wages. I understood it as the desire of the financial companies to attract the most capable employees, and as private companies they had every right to do so. What I couldn't understand was a similar gap between the union and non-union workers, who received unequal pay for equal work regardless of their qualifications - a practice the government openly supported and even encouraged by preferential treatment of union contractors in the name of "economic justice."

  "Justice" in this case means that non-union employees often work longer and harder while union members enjoy better wages and benefits, as well as job security and other unearned perks. It's even more grotesque once you realize that union perks can only exist on condition that the unprivileged workers of this country and the rest of the world continue to pick up the union tab by paying the artificially inflated consumer prices, as their much lower wages help maintain the cost of living at the union employees' level of comfort. This was exactly what I thought when I observed the sleepy unionized employees at the New York City Housing Authority distributing project documentation to private contractors that was absolutely illegible; it never occurred to them that photocopies should be made from the original sheets and not from the spawn of a hundred generations of copies that were more suitable to conducting Rorschach tests on psychiatric patients.

  To compensate for the rigid limitations imposed by the unions, American corporations found a way to retain flexibility by hiring an army of temporary employees through specialized "temp" agencies. I used to be a temp and am describing only what I saw. The "temps" didn't have the perks of their unionized co-workers, they worked more, and could be fired without warning. For all intents and purposes they were the official second-class citizens of the corporate realm, whose work paid for the privileges of others.

  I don't mean to complain; I was grateful for the opportunity to have those jobs, as were most other "temps," and the pay was fair. I felt like a deck boy sailing on luxury cruise ships of socialism that navigated capitalist waters under the protection of the battleships of trade unions. Unfortunately, there could be no protection against the icebergs of recession and financial crises. And when trouble struck, deck boys got thrown overboard without a life jacket. But capitalism is no more to blame for this than the Atlantic Ocean was to blame for the class divisions among the passengers on the Titanic.

  These two unequal classes of employees seem to be a relatively recent byproduct of the policies of "economic equality and justice" - a compromise to avoid death by strangulation as life is trying to wiggle itself out from under the morbid weight of absurd policies. How can such an idealistic goal as forced economic equality create inequality? When the results are the opposite of what is intended, it usually means that the intentions are based on a faulty premise. And since the premise here is "economic equality," it follows that it must be an erroneous concept.

  In the same way, on all levels of the economy, unionized socialism has created privileged classes of workers that exist at the expense of the underclass. As such, it has become a parasitic formation that is connected to the capitalist economy the way a parasite is connected to a healthy host body. It would then seem to be in the unions' best interests not to immobilize the host body lest they die along with it.

  The paradox of the union movement is that it succeeds as long as it fails to grow. A unionization of the entire country would not only end current exclusive privileges, but would make the economy so stagnant that the ensuing economic crisis would force the government to manage labor relations, restrict union powers, and revise labor contracts. Such a prospect is not so far-fetched, given some stated government aspirations to regulate paid vacations and sick leaves. This may seem friendly to the unions, but history indicates that when an intrusive government assumes union functions, friendship ends and a competition for power begins, in which the government of course prevails. Having fulfilled their historical mission of advancing a state-run economy, the unions will outlive their usefulness and succumb to the fate of their Soviet brothers as voiceless puppets of tyranny.

  And since forced economic equality tends to result in forced inequality of the authoritarian state, unionized workers will end up being an underclass ruled by the powerful and corrupt state oligarchs, who are the only beneficiaries of a system that redistributes unearned privileges. If one day union activists wake up under such new management, they will only have themselves to blame.

  * * *

  This chapter has a post scriptum. Shortly after the first edition of this book came out in 2010, I was invited to give a book presentation and a series of speeches in New Orleans. The book tour was organized by an expert in the areas of labor and employment law, attorney Eliska Plunkett.

  Arguing with facts from her experience, Plunkett confirmed my observations:

  "There are so many state and federal laws that protect workers from unscrupulous employers, Unions have mostly become obsolete. On the federal level there is the Fair Labor Standards Act, not only setting a minimum wage, but also regulating pay for overtime and restricting which employees can be paid a set salary for all work in any workweek. Although the federal law does not require specific break periods, many state laws do.

  The National Labor Relations Act, another federal law, protects workers' right to engage in concerted activity for mutual aid and protection, even when the employees do not belong to a union.

  Occupational Safety and Health Administration, a federal agency, regulates safety and working conditions.

  Then you have the myriad of discrimination and benefit laws:

  Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects employees from discrimination based on race, color, creed, religion, sex, and national origin.

  The Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Equal Pay Act have been grafted onto Title VII and the FLSA respectively.

  There is the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, as well as the Family and Medical Leave Act, ERISA, and COBRA, which affect benefits.

  The Fair C
redit Reporting Act contains guidelines that employers must follow in doing background checks.

  And those are just federal laws, many states have additional statutes."

  In other words, American labor unions have almost out-lived their original usefulness due to a host of union-sponsored government regulations that duplicate their functions. With all those chores out of the way, unions are now free to pursue what their leaders see as their main function: support and promotion of far-left causes.

  Folk wisdom describes an idle mind is the devil's work-shop; Lenin described it as the workshop of communism.

  CHAPTER 3

  Unions: A Study in Collective Greed and Selfishness

  American trade unions spent almost a billion dollars in the recent election to put pro-union politicians in positions of power in Washington. The Service Employees International Union, in the words of its own president, has "spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama." According to The Washington Examiner, the United Auto Workers had taken a break from bringing the auto industry to its knees and gave $1.98 million to Democratic candidates, plus $4.87 million in independent expenditures to Obama's campaign.

  The money came from the mandatory dues of the workers who often wouldn't have donated or voted for these people. In return, the Obama Labor Department is cutting back on the enforcement of federal disclosure rules, without which the workers won't be able to see where their money is going. The union bosses have a very good reason to hide their activities: the AFL-CIO has been spending so much on politics that they're going deeply into debt.

  But they are getting the expected payback. The United Auto Workers have been rewarded with owning 55% of Chrysler and 39% of General Motors, with the rest of the shares owned by the Obama government. Let me use the occasion to give Detroit automakers solidarity greetings from the Donbass coal miners. If this trend continues, the younger generation may as well wonder how a town without any motors could ever be called Motown.

  When the current recession began, the first weak links to break in the damaged economy were unionized businesses - most notably, the Big Three carmakers dominated by the UAW. By contrast, in the "Right to Work" Southern states of Alabama, Kentucky, and North Carolina, non-unionized Japanese and German carmakers with hourly labor costs 65% lower than those in Detroit, still continue to employ more than 60,000 American workers without asking for a taxpayer-funded bailout. And, unlike many of its unionized competitors that have gone bust, the non-unionized Wal-Mart remains profitable.

  UAW picket line at Star Toyota in Bayside, NY

  While the financial crisis itself was not caused by the unions, it was a product of the same economic philosophy, which prompted the government to tamper with the housing markets. It started with the desire to help a designated class of low-income families by endowing them with home ownership in the name of "economic equality and justice." But it ended with forced inequality, as countless home loans are now being repaid by taxpayers, many of whom don't even own homes and whose prospects of buying one are getting slimmer as a result.

  The initial market distortion created an economic gremlin - a younger cousin of the Donbass economic monster, if you will - only this time it was strategically placed right in the center of the world's economic engine.

  What can go wrong when self-righteous campaigners for economic equality in the government order the banks to issue risky home loans to the poor? Only a ripple effect. The demand goes up, real estate prices rise, chances of repaying the loans get slimmer, the government further pressures the banks to turn a blind eye, the banks begin to repackage bad loans, the bubble bursts, the banks collapse, a recession ensues, borrowers lose jobs and can't afford payments, and the entire financial system goes down. In the worldwide crisis that follows, countless poor people overseas who will never have a house, become even poorer than they were before the US government decided to enforce "economic equality and justice."

  Predictably, the fiasco is blamed on capitalist greed and selfishness.

  * * *

  The word "selfishness" is widely known as a trademarked fighting word, synonymous with immorality. Leftist ideologues liberally use it to club defenders of capitalism over their ruggedly individualistic heads. However, the same ideologues never decry selfishness when it is practiced by a group - either assuming that selfishness by definition cannot be collective, or that by being collective, selfishness gets an upgrade to a higher moral status, as if things perpetrated in the name of the community cannot be immoral.

  And yet, not only has group selfishness always existed on all levels of society - from warring gangs and clans to nations and races - but selfishness exerted by collectivist pressure groups often is the basest, the most irrational and immoral form of selfishness.

  While selfishness of an individual can be either rational or irrational, depending on whether it is based on reason or raw emotion, group selfishness is always irrational because crowd psychology is mostly driven by primeval collectivist instincts.

  Mussolini was well aware of the power of group selfishness, having built an entire ideology upon it, which he named fascism after the symbol of ancient Roman authority, the fasci - a bundle of rods tied together so that they couldn't be broken. In Ukraine where I grew up, folk wisdom summed it up in a sarcastic proverb, "Collectively, even beating up your own father is a breeze."

  A moral strength that motivates one to succeed in life through one's own effort and self-improvement can also be described as selfishness. But the collectivists make no distinction between an individual's rational, constructive pursuit of self-interest - and the irrational, destructive selfishness that drives one to sacrifice other people's lives or property for one's own personal gain or to become a leach on society. The two kinds are worlds apart - and yet they are often lumped together, especially when the purpose is the discrediting of successful people and businesses.

  The extreme expressions of one's irrational, destructive selfishness - fraud, theft, extortion, and violence - are punishable by law. Society never fails to condemn these actions as immoral, and rightly so. But when the same irrational, destructive selfishness is displayed by a group, it seldom causes the same moral indignation. Likewise, collective fraud, theft, extortion, and even violence don't necessarily result in punishment.

  In today's ideological climate, sacrificing other people's lives or property for collective gain, or striving to become leaches on society, is hardly deemed criminal or immoral. On the contrary, group selfishness is being extolled as a virtue and paraded under such euphemistic Orwellian labels as fairness, justice, equality, awareness, and civil rights. According to the collectivist moral code, no sacrifice is too great as long as it is done for the sake of the "many" - even if these "many" are a narrowly defined group with irrational selfish interests seeking to live at the expense of other groups.

  In the 20th century, the same moral code inspired communists to sacrifice "some" for the sake of the "many" - with the estimated numbers of "some" ranging from 100 to 200 million people. Nazis used a similar collectivist moral code as they sacrificed millions of innocents to their perverted idea of the "common good," although they could hardly compete with communists in the scale and effectiveness of their “altruistic” efforts.

  But even if it hadn't resulted in grotesque mass murder, group selfishness would still be immoral because it dehumanizes people. It denies their unique individuality and alienates them from their human selves. It causes people to be judged, not by the content of their character, but by their color, class, income, ethnicity, sexual preferences, or trade associations. And when these secondary attributes supplant primary human attributes, people cease being individuals and become two-dimensional cardboard cutouts, social functions, sacrificial animals, and expandable pawns in the clash among collectivist pressure groups for unearned status, privilege, money, and power.

  In the United States, the corrupting influence of unearned entitlements, fueled by class envy and cultivated grievances, has already recru
ited enough members to form a solid voting bloc, whose elected representatives never stop trying to legitimize the collectivist new order. The claim on unearned entitlements goes hand in hand with the claim on unearned moral authority - a travesty that few dare challenge. And as the number of unchallenged travesties continues to expand, so does the number of collectivist pressure groups and their appetites.

  Chart by Department of Sociology and Institute for Research on World-Systems, University of California-Riverside, 2005

  Along with selfishness, the other popular fighting word trademarked by leftist ideologues is greed. Equated with immorality, it is used daily in the left-leaning American media to support a barrage of anti-capitalist arguments.

  The American Heritage Dictionary defines greed as "an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves." Let's leave aside the subjective word "need," as well as the question "Who defines need?" for another discussion. The key word here is "deserve," which is synonymous with "earn." And while an individual's desire to possess more than what one has earned is being justly condemned as immoral, a collective desire to possess more than what members of a group have earned is becoming increasingly morally acceptable to many Americans, who are now willing to sacrifice their own country to the illusory moral superiority of group interests over individual rights.

  At first I was shocked that people as richly endowed with individual freedoms and opportunities as Americans could fall for such a backward and repulsive social model. But pressure groups admittedly possess a perverse kind of magnetism, similar to that of street gangs, which seem attractive enough for some people to join and forego the chance to advance oneself in the real world.