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Tuesday, September 16, 2003
16:50 - If I Only Had a Brain (It's a "Straw Man" reference, see)
http://www.conceptualguerilla.com/beattherightinthree.htm

(top) link
This is interesting. I'm not sure how I got here-- closing my eyes and randomly clicking on things can have odd results-- but I seem to have landed on a self-proclaimed primer, at a site called "Conceptual Guerilla", for leftists to use in defeating the arguments of the right.

All you have to do, says the site, is understand that "right-wing ideology is just 'dime-store economics' – intended to dress their ideology up and make it look respectable. You don't really need to know much about economics to understand it. They certainly don't. It all gets down to two simple words. 'Cheap labor'."

Interesting. Because in just about all the bullet items he goes on to list, I find that I agree with his accusation-- but not with his assessment of the rationale for it. Every one mentions "cheap labor". But, oddly, though I find myself unable to refute the first sentence of each point, my reasoning has never once used the words "cheap labor" or "over a barrel".

Maybe that's because his thesis is based on a straw man of his own construction, and he's just too proud of himself to let go of it.

Just for fun, let's go through them one by one, shall we? Let's find out what a person who always used to consider himself a liberal, but who is now off in a free-floating la-la land, thinks in reaction to this guy's statements.

Cheap-labor conservatives don't like social spending or our "safety net". Why. Because when you're unemployed and desperate, corporations can pay you whatever they feel like – which is inevitably next to nothing. You see, they want you "over a barrel" and in a position to "work cheap or starve".

I don't like social spending or a "safety net"-- or more accurately, I'm wary of such things-- because they allow people to become complacent and live on the dole forever, constantly drawing down wealth that is created by others and forced out of their hands at the point of a W-2. The bigger and more generous a welfare system is, the less incentive its beneficiaries have to work, and the more comfortable it is for them to just keep receiving welfare forever, never becoming rehabilitated, never contributing to the economy in return.

Cheap-labor conservatives don't like the minimum wage, or other improvements in wages and working conditions. Why. These reforms undo all of their efforts to keep you "over a barrel".

A minimum wage is fine and dandy. But raise it too high, and you get the same problem you have with an overenthusiastic welfare system: employers start to have to pay unskilled labor the same as they would skilled labor. How fair is that to the workers with skills? Money for a higher minimum wage has to come from somewhere-- namely, the wages of people whose work is worth more, and the operating costs of the company. Workers aren't the only ones who have to pay bills.

Cheap-labor conservatives like "free trade", NAFTA, GATT, etc. Why. Because there is a huge supply of desperately poor people in the third world, who are "over a barrel", and will work cheap.

I like free trade because it creates wealth and efficiency. Running a business where it's more expensive to do so is just stupid. That's why all the dot-coms in Silicon Valley registered their incorporation documents in Delaware-- the economic conditions are especially favorable there. That's why so many animation houses are leaving Hollywood and going to Japan and Korea and India. Not because the evil studio owners spun a globe, saw poor brown people on the other side, and rubbed their hands together cackling with glee; but because they could produce the same work for 1/3 the price, without having to deal with steep business taxes and union dues that are par for the course in California. I know a young director who's bringing his lifelong dream series to TV after years of effort. The only reason it's possible, though, is that he's having it animated in India; he'd never have been able to afford to make it here, without being part of the impermeable unionized Hollywood juggernaut. The artists? Maybe someone should ask the artists how they feel about being part of a growing global entertainment industry. They once called Termite Terrace a "sweatshop" too.

(Oh, and I love the implicit accusation that companies are giving jobs to poor brown people in other countries and thereby taking them away from good ol' white folks here at home-- and that this is a bad thing. Who's being ethnocentric now, hmm?)

Cheap-labor conservatives oppose a woman's right to choose. Why. Unwanted children are an economic burden that put poor women "over a barrel", forcing them to work cheap.

Uh? I don't oppose a woman's right to choose, but I understand the viewpoint of those who do. Oddly enough it usually seems to have something to do with "killing babies is wrong". I never once heard someone say they opposed abortion because unwanted babies kept women poor. I guess that's because I'm not truly part of the conspiracy yet, huh?

Cheap-labor conservatives don't like unions. Why. Because when labor "sticks together", wages go up. That's why workers unionize. Seems workers don't like being "over a barrel".

I don't like unions in industries where they're unnecessary-- white-collar corporations, professional disciplines, places where employees already have plenty of say in their lives. All unions do in those cases is create lucrative inefficiencies ("You can't change that light bulb-- you have to wait for the union electrician to come next month!") and prevent employers from firing anyone for cause or from laying anybody off when business is bad. The San Francisco MUNI bus system kills pedestrians in traffic accidents every year; yet the bus drivers involved are never prosecuted, nor even lose their jobs, because of the bus drivers' union. I might be going out on a limb here, but I think that sucks. (This has to do with "fairness" and "justice", not "keeping workers over a barrel".) And in European industries where unions are powerful, companies can't lay anybody off during economic downturns, or even reduce wages, so instead they go spectacularly bankrupt. And they can't hire aggressively in upturns, for fear of having this unfireable workforce if the market should go sour, which means they can't take advantage of market opportunities (the way that, say, the dot-com boom took off here, when companies couldn't even hire fast enough to support the explosion). Such union-dominated companies can't innovate, can't capitalize on their opportunities, can't invest, can't create wealth. That too, I believe, sucks. (This has to do with "promoting innovation and competition" and "responsible financial policy", not "keeping workers over a barrel".)

Cheap-labor conservatives constantly bray about "morality", "virtue", "respect for authority", "hard work" and other "values". Why. So they can blame your being "over a barrel" on your own "immorality", lack of "values" and "poor choices".

I constantly bray about "morality", "virtue", "respect for authority" (wait, do I?), "hard work" and other "values" because they form the core of our society. We reward hard work and revile laziness. That's because those who work hard create wealth and drive economic and technological progress; whereas those who don't, don't. We as a people respect creativity, ingenuity, and the self-made man. Some countries find this surprising. I don't, however. Because the alternative is to punish those who work hard by giving their winnings to those who don't work hard. And I don't find that very fair.

To say nothing of what happens to the incentive for achievement. Why should I open a business to sell my new invention, if I'm just going to lose all my profits in taxes that go to chronic welfare recipients? Why should I bother trying to get ahead at work so I can send my kid to college, if Joe Schmoe can get the same thing by asking the government for a tax-supported handout? Why should I work to make my family and community richer if I'll get penalized for doing so? It's the same thing that we'll have to deal with now thanks to Davis' vote-pandering legislation: Why should I wait for years and work hard and save a ton of money to enter the US legally and get that coveted legal California driver's license, if someone else can just sneak over the border and get one of his own for free?

I've been spending every evening for the past six weeks writing a new book that will probably top 600 pages when I'm done. I have two months on contract to produce it. This means approximately six hours of intensive writing every single night, while I simultaneously try to do home renovation work to get the backyard and kitchen and new master suite all shipshape. And that's on top of my 40-hour-plus day job. This is called hard work. I'm being offered a nice hefty advance and very favorable royalty rates in compensation for the writing effort, which is ostensibly why I'm doing it. But I'm going to have to earmark fully half of that take to be mailed back to the government next April, there to be distributed to the pockets of people who say quite proudly that jobs are for suckers. Know what? It makes me feel like they're right.

Cheap-labor conservatives encourage racism, misogyny, homophobia and other forms of bigotry. Why? Bigotry among wage earners distracts them, and keeps them from recognizing their common interests as wage earners.

Wow. Even the right-wing bigots that I've heard from over the years have never said anything like this. There's that conspiracy again, eh?

I'd love for workers who are "over a barrel" not to be. If they lift themselves up and create and achieve, they contribute more to society as a whole. I have no interest whatsoever in holding such people down where they can't get anywhere. Cheap labor is an interesting thing to have, but I have no illusion that it's some sort of inviolable resource that must be kept at a certain level of supply lest the Business Fatcats come crashing down from their pedestals. Why? Because a worker who chooses to achieve-- by getting a better job, inventing something new, opening a business of his own-- will create more wealth for society than it costs society to lose him as "cheap labor".

Economics isn't a zero-sum game. Wealth is created all the time. What I think the Left seems to believe is that there's a fixed amount of wealth in the world, and it can either be distributed evenly or unevenly, fairly or unfairly. But that's not the case. Every time someone creates something that's worth more to the company or to society than he gets paid, wealth is created. This happens all the time-- an astonishing amount. It's because the human brain is a wealth factory-- a miraculous perpetual-motion machine that can defy physics by generating new ideas that are worth more to the world than the cost of the food and oxygen you shovel into it. It's how this world continues to grow and become an ever better place to live. Such a thing wouldn't happen if we had "conservation of wealth".

I'm in favor of those policies which will lead to more creation of wealth, regardless of who does the creating. Because the benefits are felt by everybody in society.

Phew. I didn't even bother reading the article further; just more of the same straw men standing in a neat row in the cornfield, accusing me of seeing the world in terms of "cheap labor", and of keeping poor workers "over a barrel". But with that premise to start from, I'm pretty confident that whoever he's talking about, it ain't me.


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