Video: The end of the beginning
posted at 4:00 pm on March 5, 2011 by Ed Morrissey
Or a new beginning altogether? Bill Whittle walks us through American labor history, focusing closely on the progressive movement’s salad days from 1890 to 1920 to argue that the world has changed so much as to make progressivism an anachronism. The Second Age, industrialization, required massive amounts of labor corralled into centralized production centers and cities in order to succeed. The labor movement (and progressivism) arose to combat the mercantilism of the robber barons that controlled industrialization, but those models won’t work in the modern economy, which rewards decentralization and rapid, small-scale innovation. The unions can’t win in Wisconsin or anywhere else in the long run, Whittle says, because they’re defending a model that has long since disappeared:
Obviously, these are broad strokes. The global economy still requires mass manufacturing, mining, construction, and other traditional labor-intensive tasks. However, globalization and the heavy cost of unions to business has pushed much of those activities out of the country, except for those industries tasked with deriving the natural resources from America. Organized labor will still play a part in those industries, but ironically, those are the industries most under fire from the politicians that get elected with union dollars: Democrats. Oil, coal, and gas extraction could create millions of new well-paying and union jobs, but the unions keep contributing to those politicians most likely to block the extraction and use of all three. That’s another reason why the unions are fast becoming an anachronism.
Blowback
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Unions=anachronism……well stated……
t on March 5, 2011 at 4:03 PM
Maybe they can become talk show hosts or actors./
CWforFreedom on March 5, 2011 at 4:04 PM
Another area ripe for unionization if ObamaCare stays as law: Healthcare. You can’t ship those jobs overseas, although you can bring healthcare workers from overseas here. Won’t it be great to have to cross a picket line to go into a hospital?/
txmomof6 on March 5, 2011 at 4:08 PM
What we need is a union of union bosses.
Sharke on March 5, 2011 at 4:11 PM
While they may be anachronisms they can still cause a lot of problems until they go the way of the dinosaur.
chemman on March 5, 2011 at 4:13 PM
He’s partly wrong. It was the Civil War which caused the centralization of government. The 14th Amendment is the one which requires the Government to assure that the States do not infringe upon the rights of the People. And, in spite of the 17th Amendment, the Senators still favor their States over the United States. As for decentralization, that’s not what we are about here — rather, it’s about having our governments, no matter at which level they govern, live within their means. Given that rights are “inalienable”, nobody should be able to reach into my wallet to obtain their rights.
unclesmrgol on March 5, 2011 at 4:18 PM
The real reason they can’t win is because they’ve already spent all of everyone’s money and there isn’t any more.
Kohath on March 5, 2011 at 4:25 PM
I’m just waiting to see what Charlie Sheen thinks….
**ducks**
ted c on March 5, 2011 at 4:25 PM
Always confused me why we can either send jobs overseas or bring overseas workers here, but we can’t employ our own workers?
rgranger on March 5, 2011 at 4:26 PM
Progressives are attacking our digital age of freedom with the regulation of the internet by the FCC.
The name, like all progressive legislation is cutesy and misleading. Net Neutrality is more Net Neutering and as the video points out, these progressive dinosaurs will try and control it, for our own good.
Kini on March 5, 2011 at 4:26 PM
Because they will end up like what California is fast approaching. Everyone who can will leave the state, so the only ones left will be the union members, who will have to tax themselves heavily to pay the benefits they demanded.
Wethal on March 5, 2011 at 4:34 PM
Boy he makes it sound as if America having a bright and free future again is inevitable. I really hope he is correct. I’m just not so optimistic. There are too many drones running around and a media who is corrupt beyond belief.
jawkneemusic on March 5, 2011 at 4:40 PM
Great analysis, Ed. Thanks for the video clip.
JimP on March 5, 2011 at 4:42 PM
So we can now clearly see the danger that the Internet is in.
ericdijon on March 5, 2011 at 4:49 PM
Unions – created by Luddites, for the sole benefit of.
OldEnglish on March 5, 2011 at 4:51 PM
As I’ve said to many leftist/liberal weak kneed mostly ex-friends… they will find that they are on the wrong side of history in their surrender to big government, and they are worthless.
-
RalphyBoy on March 5, 2011 at 4:57 PM
Love it. Great stuff. The movement away from Big government is inevitable. As Reagan was famous for saying, you cannot be for big government and the little guy.
Angry Dumbo on March 5, 2011 at 5:06 PM
Always confused me why we can either send jobs overseas or bring overseas workers here, but we can’t employ our own workers?
rgranger on March 5, 2011 at 4:26 PM
Not just jobs: Northern Va Community College is spending thousdands on trips to South America, China, Korea and Turkey to recruit students. They even want to build dorms for them. Screw the kids in VA they want to feel good about educating the world.
faol on March 5, 2011 at 5:15 PM
Jobs get sent elsewhere, when do to government regulation, and or Union action the cost of doing business raises to the point that the price of the product, or service beyond what people are willing, or able pay for it.
Workers get imported when the local labor force, either do not have the necessary skills, and/or credentials, or when the local labor force is unwilling to work for compensation that allows the employer to operate in a cost effective manner.
Slowburn on March 5, 2011 at 5:19 PM
Bill Whittle is doing a superb job with Declaration Entertainment. Please consider helping him get these films out by becoming a member.
http://declarationentertainment.com/
Connie on March 5, 2011 at 5:38 PM
Progressivism is atavism, the wishful application of obsolete, counterproductive methods to modern conditions. Conservatives should be beating this drum with reason, mockery, and emotional appeals. Unless we regain the ethical high ground, we’re goners.
petefrt on March 5, 2011 at 6:23 PM
Stupid is as stupid does…
ladyingray on March 5, 2011 at 6:30 PM
Lots of nurses are already unionized.
angryed on March 5, 2011 at 6:34 PM
Little did we know that ‘Hope and Change’ meant change back to the failed Progressivism theories of the 1920′s.
slickwillie2001 on March 5, 2011 at 6:35 PM
Much truth to this statement. People are fleeing Ca. in droves; most seeking job opportunities and some running out ahead of the violence that will surely hit Ca. when the gravy train comes to a rapid halt. Same thing in NY.
Keemo on March 5, 2011 at 6:36 PM
I think he’s right in the long run. The next 10-20 years will be a constant fight against these people. Wisconsin is the 1st of many, many acts to follow. Which is why it is so important for Walker and the GOP Sens to win it. It will set the tone for the coming fights in every other state/county/city across the land.
angryed on March 5, 2011 at 6:38 PM
Try dis again!
===================
O/T-Tornado
=============
U.S. Weather
One Reportedly Killed When Tornado Tears Through Louisiana Town,March 05, 2011
——————–
At least one person was killed, and 12 others injured, when a tornado struck the southwestern Louisiana town of Rayne Saturday, according to KATC.com.
http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2011/03/05/people-injured-louisiana-tornado/
==================
BREAKING NEWS: LIVE STORM COVERAGE CONTINUES
Posted: Mar 5, 2011 3:17 PM
http://www.katc.com/news/breaking-news-live-storm-coverage-continues/
————-
http://www.katc.com/home/
*****************************
1 killed, at least 11 hurt in Louisiana storm
Woman dies when tree smashes into house; natural gas leaks prompt evacuations
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41922745/ns/weather/
******************************************
Destructive Tornadoes Rip Across Louisiana
Mar 5, 2011; 2:10 PM ET
Severe storms, some of which were spawning destructive tornadoes, ripped through Louisiana on Saturday.
An EF0 tornado touch down was confirmed 2 miles NNW of Crowley, located in Acadia Parish, around 10 a.m. CST. The twister was 25 yards wide, and caused a two-mile path of extensive damage.
The storm that produced the tornado continued to moved northeastward, where it pummeled Rayne. This storm was a confirmed EF2 tornado that passed through. The twister was 300 yards wide and caused a 5 mile path of damage.
As many as 50 people were injured and one person was killed in Rayne, while many houses and other buildings suffered severe damage in the path of the suspect tornado. A car wash building collapsed as the twister tore through the area.
=====
(Map)
Severe Weather Reports on Saturday March 3, 2011, courtesy of the Storm Prediction Center. The red dots indicate tornado reports, while the blue dots indicate severe thunderstorm wind damage. NWS survey teams will investigate damage in some areas where tornado damage is suspect but not confirmed yet.
(more…..)
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/46603/destructive-tornadoes-rip-acro.asp
canopfor on March 5, 2011 at 7:34 PM
This. Meanwhile in Madison, ignorant college students protest and chant, demanding their own future impoverishment at the hands of clerks who don’t give a damn about the future so long as their phony sinecures are protected.
Mr. D on March 5, 2011 at 7:45 PM
No, you have it quite wrong. Net neutrality means that your ISP cannot prevent deny you service based solely upon your use of legal content. No more, no less. Verizon cannot stop you from emitting or receiving Skype packets because they offer a competing phone service. Comcast cannot stop you from emitting or receiving BitTorrent, YouTube, Hulu, or NetFlix packets because they offer a competing internet TV service. They are allowed to limit your bandwidth/data rate to contracted values, they are allowed to prevent you from behaving unsociably (e.g., sending SPAM), but they are NOT allowed to prevent you from sending or receiving the legal content of your choice. Without Net Neutrality, your ISP can do these things. What we have now is Net Neutrality, but what Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast have proposed is exactly the opposite. These companies have monopolies in their respective service areas — try getting anything other than Verizon DSL service (either FIOS or copper) in any area where Verizon has been granted its utility monopoly, and try getting Warner or some other cable company in a place where Comcast has a cable monopoly.
unclesmrgol on March 5, 2011 at 7:45 PM
Yankee Enginuity,not if Union Goons have
their way!!
Progressive’s HellBound Philosophy,of HellBent on
Destruction of America,because d*mmitt,this time,
its really,really,gonna work!!!!
canopfor on March 5, 2011 at 7:51 PM
So,what we,er,Americans have here,is a Mafia style
Cult,of Politics in bed,er,actually,ahem,incestuous
Liberal Party and Union embedding of sick sorts!!!
canopfor on March 5, 2011 at 7:58 PM
I disagree. It’s made them more beholden to their party rather than their state or country. They pay lip service and pork service to their states to get elected but have no qualms about destroying their own state to push what their party dictates.
oddjob1138 on March 5, 2011 at 8:06 PM
The Borgs!
==========
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Rd3wYZdVVLg/TXJgQe-jUFI/AAAAAAAAAns/oiL7hqZDvcY/s1600/GreatCollectivists.bmp
====================================
Friday, March 4, 2011
Big Labor’s Lies: Richard Trumka’s Bald-Faced Falsehoods on Wisconsin’s Budget Stalemate
******************************
The transcript’s here, from PBS NewsHour last night, “AFL-CIO’s Trumka:
————-
No American Should Face Choice Between Rights, Job.” But it has to be seen to be believed. In a response to Judy Woodruff’s questioning,
Trumka issues a series of categorical falsehoods regarding the budget negotiations and political situation in Madison:
(more…..)
———————————————————-
Here’s the key passage, from the transcript:
JUDY WOODRUFF:
You know, Rich Trumka, the way he and other governors frame this, though, is they’re saying, this is an argument between all of the citizens of the state, in this case Wisconsin, versus the public workers. And he said, when it comes down to that balance, public workers should be willing to give some.
RICHARD TRUMKA:
Well, you know, they have been.
(more…)
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/big-labors-lies-richard-trumkas-bald.html
canopfor on March 5, 2011 at 8:10 PM
I tend to agree. As much as I’m for it, I question whether Capitalism will survive another 50 years. Under increasing Socialist inroads into our social, economic and academic infrastructure I’m sure it’s changing even now and irreversibly.
I think also that the SBA and its loans was a baaaad idea. You can’t claim to be a Free Enterprise Capitalist and have the Feds secure your loans (no matter how many hoops they may make you jump through). Given the high failure rate the losses and the debt they cause year after year are cumulative and have to be well into the tens of billions by now. The SBA chairman said some years ago that for every SBA dollar lent it cost the U.S. taxpayer 97 cents.
On top of that is the great loss to lenders and suppliers who will never get paid.
Surely the unions have some hand in small businesses failing, but the unions are not ubiquitous. What excuse is there for failing retail and other businesses where unions are sparse or even non-existent?
Like I’ve posted elsewhere, yeah, some unions are a pain in the rump and even out and out crooked but their existence doesn’t explain why our economic system is failing.
Dr. ZhivBlago on March 5, 2011 at 8:11 PM
Bill Whittle’s putting out good stuff. He’s good at explaining things, comparably as effective as Beck. I wish there were a way to give a one-time contribution to his Firewall, just to encourage going full speed ahead. I’d support more like Firewall in a heartbeat, but I’m not so sure about his movies, so I don’t warm up to a one-year subscription to promote them.
petefrt on March 5, 2011 at 8:21 PM
Only if the cost of sending it elswhere is not made higher than the cost of keeping it in the US, staffed by US citizens on a permanent basis. You’re exchanging union corruption for immigration law fraud.
When someone talks about a skills shortage in the US, they are perpetuating fraud. There’s nothing that would make a proper training of our own people worse off. Of course, US citizens aren’t as servile as those in nations that receive US jobs.
We have the people and the ability to train them, but they arent servile enough to some. Training less competent people overseas/importing them only makes things worse.
This is why trying to kill a union will affect people that are not unionized, and may event. Kill one, don’t be surprised if your job gets sent offshore under fraudulent claims of skills – or that someone that does, ends up undercutting your business.
Think long and hard if you really want to use government interference to only switch what kinds of crime you incentivize. Even if said offshoring fraud works in your favor.
sethstorm on March 5, 2011 at 8:22 PM
Edits in bold.
sethstorm on March 5, 2011 at 8:34 PM
Call me an idealist, but I believe mankind (especially mankind of the American persuasion) has a drive for freedom. And that drive includes economic freedom, along with political and social freedom. We may lose our freedom for several decades, but as far as I can see, the question is not whether it will come back, but how many generations will it take and how bloody will it be.
Like Europe, we’ll probably have to find our bottom with socialism before we find the will to fix things. Stuff will have to get unacceptably bad before we as a nation find the willl to re-examine and mend our ways. Meanwhile, it’ll be the war of values, the culture war, that continues to control our economic governance. (That’s why, of course, the culture war is the essential war of our time.)
petefrt on March 5, 2011 at 8:49 PM
Agreed. At the levels that unions are at now, they are more scapegoat than market-distorting force. If you need to see how this is, one need only see the branching out of labor relations law practices towards immigration law. What was once used to kill off unions is increasingly being used to perpetuate offshoring fraud.
Financial cuts, definitely.
Big government action, no way no how.
sethstorm on March 5, 2011 at 8:54 PM
Decentralization is an effect, not a cause.
The Labor Unions represent a form of intermediation service, in that they stand between an individual and a corporation and act as an intermediary for negotiations. Their demise is not due to decentralization but the drive towards disintermediation that started in the ’60s and ’70s with financial services. As mutual funds spread the ability to invest, one no longer needed a stock broker but could utilize a fund manager as an intermediary: that intermediary system broke the big-money stranglehold for private investment. That then began to morph, in turn, to the direct investment system via PC that was showing up in the 1980′s. Today the ability to invest directly, with minimal intermediation is an outgrowth of that drive away from the large investment houses.
Disintermediation, itself, is driven by connectivity and is guided by Metcalf’s Law. The utility of a network goes up as a factorial of the number of useful nodes contributing to the network. Thus it is not a scale law (like Moore’s Law) but a log-power law that sees a huge payback for even minimal contribution into a network. With strong communications between workers and the ability to leverage such networks for better jobs, at better pay, the Unions found themselves being outdone by person-to-person networks that allowe individuals to move from job to job as they gained marginally better skills. Instead of moving upwards in the industrial pay ranks, Unions moved downwards and became marginalized.
Compounding this is the Feiler Faster Thesis of how quickly individuals pick up new information and process it as they increase their utilization of new information sources. Mickey Kaus saw this in the news business in the 1970′s, but this looks to be a single case of a broader set of knowledge adaptations systems utilized by individuals. Thus you now understand and turn around information, thus processing it to an end result, far faster than you did just a decade ago. Something that would have taken a week 10 years ago now takes you a day to process, mentally, which means that those who are not partaking of rich networks do not gain this benefit and find that their OODA loop is being exploited by their opponents. Large organizations are notorious for not being nimble, thus empowered workers with the FFT on their side can more quickly find the right set of skills to market and negotiate a good contract (using Metcalf’s Law for finding said job) than any Union ever could.
This creates a disaggregation of power to individuals away from institutions, and that is one of the most powerful concepts ever put forward in history: that individuals are the driving force behind all of society and, thusly, Nations. One Nation, and only one Nation, is founded on this belief and is willing to trust individuals to the maximum extent so as to get the greatest social good possible without intermediaries trying to exploit power situations. And as the people are the source of power and can change their minds faster than any organization, they can whiplash old institutions over-night.
Grand, isn’t it?
Big Labor, Big Government, Big Business, Big Agriculture… all about to come down to the strange thing known as individuals utilizing their minds, hearts and hands to create a better world. Don’t mind the mess between now and then. Those finding out that others are inside their OODA loop tend to respond very badly. And that is their downfall.
ajacksonian on March 5, 2011 at 9:19 PM
BILL WHITTLE 2012!!!
-Wasteland Man.
WastelandMan on March 5, 2011 at 9:39 PM
Can we reserve that slur for the Jay Goulds of the 19th century and leave the James Hills, Andrew Carnegies, and Cornelius Vanderbilts out of it?
AshleyTKing on March 5, 2011 at 10:04 PM
So by allowing the the government to regulate the internet and its content is a good thing?
I’d rather have the choice to change providers rather than made to live with a government regulated slice of the internet. Let the free market decide what content and usage is, not the governments realm to decide.
Which after living under Comcast’s monopoly, my money goes to a better provider, with the bandwidth I need, and at the price I can afford. Much better than Comcast and Verizon.
Kini on March 6, 2011 at 12:27 AM
Agreed. The Carnegie, Hill, Vanderbilt types were huge producers.
And anachronism is the perfect description for unions.
98ZJUSMC on March 6, 2011 at 3:58 AM
I am waiting for my state (California) to crumble… I bought $20 worth of pizzas last night and paid $1.80 in tax… That’s 9%… Plus the high personal income tax rate (right at 10%)… Gas is over $4/gallon in a lot of the state… I just can’t see how they are keeping the house of cards upright…
Khun Joe on March 6, 2011 at 8:34 AM
Elsewhere does not necessarily mean another country, moving to a right to work state could be effective.
Moving goods across international borders causes custom, and tariff problems. If those costs go up, there is probably Union money behind it.
I do wonder how you define servile. Willing to take a pay cut when his skills become obsolete, and he must learn a new set of skills?
If I need plumbers, the fact that you are a master welder does not make you more competent than an unlettered savage from Borneo, if he willing to learn to do the job.
I’m only interested in killing the Public labor unions, that “negotiate” with people they have given vast sums of money to. The private labor unions I wish to merely remove the ability for them to extort money from people who do not wish to give it to them.
I am not sure what you mean by offshoring fraud, but I do not support slave labor even if the slaves are in Asia, or Africa.
Slowburn on March 6, 2011 at 11:51 AM
@ unclesmrgol:
No, Kini on March 5, 2011 at 4:26 PM had it right.
You, on the other hand, have swallowed the lie told in order to sell “Net Neutrality”: a lie which says “calm down…this is merely a technical issue…and an effort to preserve your favorite service”.
But the regulations actually proposed to implement “Net Neutrality” are something entirely different: Kini characterizes them accurately as “Net Neutering”.
In summary, “Net Neutrality” is a “false flag” ploy designed by the left to get you to agree to shut up!! The phrase is being used as an excuse for re-implementation of the “Fairness Doctrine”…this time on steroids.
Don’t be taken in: READ THE ACTUAL REGULATIONS BEING PROPOSED AND PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE FALSE HEADLINES on NYT and other Leftist media stories!!!
landlines on March 6, 2011 at 12:04 PM
One example:
* Requirements for a job call for some impossible combination – such as having 7 years in something that exists only for 5. The idea here is to step around the requirements of there not being someone qualified in the US for the job.
Neither would be (immediately) suited to be a plumber. Both would have to learn the same sets of skills related to that profession.
What I am getting at is that requirements for things are increasingly departing from what actually is needed to get things done. While there is plenty of room for stacking requirements, they are being used for things other than determining competence.
Neither of those. It is someone who, by some means beyond their own will, puts their own interests aside in favor of the interests of another.
I’d be very interested if there is a way to do either/both without collateral damage. If one could isolate the effects of it to the unions, then there wouldn’t be the problems that it has with it spilling over.
The collateral costs are why I cannot support anything more than:
* The natural decay of labor unions
* Out-competing labor unions on the basis of their claims.
I have no interest to join one out of the costs and corruption. However, I find that the same processes used to kill unions are increasingly being re-purposed towards those that are far away from unionization.
That aside:
Strip the labor unions of exclusivity, and they’re not much different than a government contractor. A very bad one at that. It is a lot easier to argue it from that angle, given that poorly performing ones do exist.
Highly dependent on the costs involved, and the likeliness of a union to exist in a given industry.
Also, in absence of labor unions, would this law make much of a difference(by itself)? Not everything is a pure/mostly pure unionization question, especially with the decline of them. While it might discourage the existence/formation of unions, it may not have the same effect when there isn’t an entity for which to cover.
Not sure what you mean here (beyond the costs of crossing customs, and any unionized industries involved).
sethstorm on March 7, 2011 at 3:00 AM
Ed,
You say “The global economy still requires mass manufacturing, mining, construction, and other traditional labor-intensive tasks” as if Whittle is overstating the so-called digital revolution.
But the agricultural revolution brought intelligent order and tremendous efficiency to obtaining food and changed the nature of things.
The industrial built on top of the existing agricultural norm and with new machines tremendously increased food production.
The digital revolution should improve and just as greatly change the nature of labor-intensive tasks. Just as computers now help to design planes and cars and perform work in factories that used to require human labor, it seems that the digital age will modify the need for labor in manufacturing in the same way industrial techniques modified agriculture.
Where I disagree with Whittle is that with each of these revolutions humans became more interdependant rather than independant. It may be a great new day dawning, but I see the world becoming smaller and cultures and cultural distinctions being obliterated. This may be a good thing, but I for one don’t particularly look forward to living in one global megacity.
flicker on March 7, 2011 at 3:06 AM
Look to see who lobbied for the increase in tariff and/or changes in customs procedures and fees.
Slowburn on March 7, 2011 at 8:11 AM