Continued from Part 5
7. "Fight for workers' and union rights."
Students Fight Back exceeds the arena of education by going into the economics of labor and business, yet they do so conscious only of perceived injustices while having little or no consciousness of other workplace factors that are very important in both the long and short runs. They want “good jobs for all” and the end of “anti-worker laws that hamper union organizing and membership.” They are correct and justified in wanting an end to any laws that diminish the organizing and even bargaining rights of unions, since the right to a redress of grievances is a valuable cornerstone of liberty. The many attempts by colonial governments to get the British monarchy to ease punitive laws and policies were statements of grievances, and the subsequent war of rebellion and Declaration of Independence were the result of what happens when grievances are not redressed, but rather met with punitive violence.
Recent legislation passed in Wisconsin has angered many due to the effective termination of bargaining rights for public sector unions. Such actions go against the Constitutional rights of peaceful assembly (the collective aspect) and speech (the bargaining aspect).
Despite being justified in their pro-union stance, the fact that the majority of Students Fight Back members and activists are Marxists automatically implies their inability to differentiate between politics and economics, Though the two fields often go hand in hand, it is absolutely necessary to be able to differentiate, thus having to firmly grasp the workings of labor, production, and capital in order to be able to take political action on economic matters (though doing so is rarely necessary). Their status as believers in the radical faith of Karl Marx also denotes that their understanding of economics and the true workings of the free market system are severely limited.
When the organization demands “good jobs for all,” they fail to specify what a “good job” is. Failing to clarify creates a giant hole in their argument and any hope of justification of their demands. When they demand a good job for every worker, do they refer to specifically to a white collar job as opposed to the many blue collar or retail sector jobs most students work, or do they refer simply to any job that pays significantly more than the minimum wage? The question could delve even further. Must a “good job” also be one with an associated prestige, such as a doctor, lawyer, or film actor, or would construction work and administrative clerical work be considered equally as good? Given that Marxists love to approach economics through the lens of wages and labor hours, a blue collar job and white collar job that pay the same high wage and require the same amount of daily or weekly hours would appear to be equally as good. However, they fail to take into consideration the possibility that a construction worker laboring under the hot sun for eight hours doing exhausting repetitive motions will see the admin clerk through a window, seated comfortably in an air conditioned office, and this construction worker wouldn’t help but feel as if he got the raw end of the deal.
They often forget that the majority of jobs in the United States are created not by huge trans-national global corporations, but rather by smaller corporations limited to operating within the U.S., smaller chains, and small businesses. Even though socialists have nothing but disdain for profits and the profit motive, it is purely profits that create jobs. Profits—not to be mistaken for revenue (paying off any and all expenses of production and business as a whole)—are rarely significant. Author Kel Kelly explains this with the following chart:[1]
Revenues $1,000,000 100%
Cost of Labor Wages $365,000 37%
Cost of Capital
Capital Goods: Plant, $295,000 30%
Equipment, machinery, tools
Other Capital: Product $160,000 16%
Input Costs,
Supplies and Admin. $80,000 8%
Profit $100,000 10%
Better yet, if everyone is entitled to a good job, who is to decide which worker gets to be a film actor, a low-level construction worker, an admin clerk, or a prostitute? (Yes, there are sex workers and a part of the working class, equally deserving of Marxist sympathies and admiration as the Industrial Revolution-era factory worker). Who will decide, and more importantly justify assigning one equal citizen as an editorial writer, with the privilege of writing a few hundred words a day and curling up with books and newspapers as “research,” and another equal citizen as a sanitation worker, doomed to climb down man-holes and jump into chest deep rivers or urine, feces, and rotting matter? Even with full employment, not everyone can have a “good job.”
Continued in Part 7: If you're in prison it's not because you're a criminal--it's because the police and courts are racist... even if the cop who arrested you and judge who sentenced you are of the same race as you. Condemn those racists!
[1] Kelly, Kel. The Case For Legalizing Capitalism. Ludwig von Mises Institute. 2010. p. 51.
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