The Relationship Between The Labor Movement And Wealth Creation In America

From commentary by Em over at Dangerous Minds:

What the protestors in Tahriri Square as well as the public Union workers in Winsconsin have in common is the rejection of a commonly repeated narrative about how wealth is created. In this commonly repeated narrative, it is necessary to concentrate capital in the hands of a few, who will then use that capital to create businesses and generate wealth, which will trickle down to the many. In order to get this alleged wealth-pump moving, impediments to wealth concentration such as labor movements must be removed, and indeed (according to the common false narrative), the history of wealth generation in developed countries such as the USA is precisely the history of overcoming these pesky impediments. What the protestors in both Wisconsin as well as the Arab world have done is reject that narrative as well as the bogus and half-baked economic theory that is often sold as part of it.

A corrollary to this theory of wealth generation is that civil liberties such as free speech are a luxury, and should be suspended for the sake of the greater good, until wealth starts to flow and incomes rise significantly. This is a particularly pernicious part of the package, because no doubt countless men and women workers have resigned themselves to a life of incredible toil in order to (they believe) move their society forward. Inequities, injustices as well as the suspension of civil liberties were tolerated because they appeared necessary to move their country ahead into greater levels of wealth for everyone.

What the third world protestors in Tahriri Square and elsewhere in the Arab world have done, along with their compatriots in the Wisconsin State Capital, is reject this set of lies and the false either/or choice it presents of civil liberty versus economic progress. Though they may not be able to articulate it, the protestors have finally looked upon the general character of those that hold the levers of power and chose to regard the false choice they have proferred as a lie, which it is.

The first part of this larger-scale lie is that Labor has played no significant role in the generation of wealth in the developed world. In fact, empowering workers has been equated with command-driven soviet and communist models, which were arguably equitable by making everyone equally poor. In this narrative, the US has generated its unprecedented wealth precisely by defeating the evil specter of organized labor. Wealth, it is told, has been created by allowing capital to be concentrated into the hands of the wealthy, who best know how to wield it, thereby creating jobs and new wealth. What is not stated in this view is that the wealthy classes are regarded as almost a divine class, having been born (and not made) and appointed by God.

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