So often I encounter an implicit categorical claim where one is unwarranted. As an abstract matter X's are good, the narrative goes; x is an X; therefore x is good, and attacks on x are bad.
Unions, the capacity of workers to bargain collectively, are essential. An army is also essential: indeed, according to the Catechism every person has an obligation to defend his country.
From neither of these abstract facts does it follow that a particular war or particular union or particular union contracts are inherently good and just, and insulated from criticism. People should not argue as if it did follow.
Setting aside the anti-South anti-white bigotry, an unstated assumption in this post seems to be that it would not be good to kill the UAW off completely. I don’t have a position on whether it would or would not be good to kill the UAW off completely; but it cannot be taken as a simple given that the UAW is a good concrete and particular institution, worthy of support and survival, just because it happens to be a union.
Comments (12)
Zippy, your reading is rather strange. The article simply states facts and rather reasonable commentary.
It isn't "anti-south and anti-white" to point out that which a glance at a map and polling data makes clear.
Ditto for pointing out that the Republican Senators leading the opposition come from states with an anti-union history. It is somewhat ironic that those states have heavily subsidized their own non union auto industries.
This is the opening shot on the coming card check battle. Republicans understand that card check will make a conservative political party non-viable.
Posted by al | December 19, 2008 2:46 PM
Well, for that matter, the fact that the NLRA is legislation supporting unions (in at least some sense) doesn't imply that the NLRA is good law, worthy of support, and should not be repealed. The 'reasonable commentary' in the article assumes that certain particulars are good, backing that up (at least rhetorically) with Magisterial citations about a general category of things.
Celery may be good for you, but it doesn't follow that eating that particular truckload of celery would be good for you.
Posted by Zippy | December 19, 2008 3:05 PM
Please provide an explicit warning when linking to a parody site. The UAW has lost 2/3's of its members since the late 70's and never learned any lessons or demonstrated any common sense and creativity in responding to the stresses of globalization. The American worker is being squeezed by corporations with transnational loyalties and private sector unions frozen in the 1930's. The wasteland known as the Rust Belt is proof we're reaching a breaking-point.
Posted by Kevin | December 19, 2008 3:43 PM
Posted by Zippy | December 19, 2008 3:55 PM
Families are essential, but that does not mean you have support the Sopranos.
Posted by Francis Beckwith | December 19, 2008 4:08 PM
This was excellent, Zippy.
Posted by aristocles | December 19, 2008 4:17 PM
There's a similar argument the pacifist uses in depicting the horrors of war. Something along the lines of x is bad, and war is x, and so on.
Posted by KW | December 19, 2008 5:00 PM
That linked-to post was really bad. They ought to know that the concessions from the UAW were not nearly enough to make the companies viable since salaries are only a part of modern compensation packages. They're still being compensated more than the workers at Toyota.
Posted by Albert | December 19, 2008 5:35 PM
"They're still being compensated more than the workers at Toyota."
How much more?
Posted by al | December 20, 2008 2:57 AM
al,
Michigan subsidies their auto companies as well:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/12/michigan-3-billion-in-business.html
As for how much more domestic company workers cost than workers at foreign-owned plants, it's about $25 per hour:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/12/more-on-70-total-labor-cost-per-hour.html
Bookmark Mary Perry and learn!
Posted by Jeff Singer | December 20, 2008 8:16 AM
MM really is bigoted against Calvinists, evangelicals, etc. His rants blaming Calvinists or evangelicals for the Iraq War are akin to the feverish rantings of anti-Jewish conspiracy theorists, except less rational or reality-based (at least there are some Jews in the halls of finance and government, whereas there were zero evangelicals or Calvinists in the top levels of the Bush administration.)
Great post, by the way. It would be nice if more Catholic "thinkers" were able to make such elementary distinctions, rather than boiling everything down to such black-and-white us-against-them rants ("unions are good, ergo anyone who doesn't want to give a specific union everything it wants is a hateful and un-Catholic meanie").
Posted by SB | December 20, 2008 1:58 PM
al, a lot more. Google it. Or you could ask Cerberus, the extremely rich private equity firm with a majority stake in Chrysler, who told the US Treasury: “Unless Chrysler’s labor costs can achieve parity with the foreign transplants and without the restructuring of Chrysler’s debt,” Cerberus announced. “Chrysler cannot be restored to long-term health and the government loan will be unlikely to be repaid.”
Why are they admitting this? Because they've decided that Chrysler is such a worthless sinking ship they're willing to wash their hands completely of it by giving it away. The upside for them is that they don't have to spend more resources than Chrysler's worth trying to figure out what to do with it... unless you think this high power private equity firm (the CEO is former US Treasury Jack Snow) is so financially generous this holiday season they're willing to give the US taxpayers an opportunity to share in Chrysler's future profits.
Posted by Albert | December 22, 2008 4:51 PM