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When we speak of "defending jobs", we need to clarify what we mean. We have to go beyond the mere mechanics of protecting workers with things like putting an end to the exporting of jobs or raising minimum wage rates or protecting workers from discrimination in the workplace.
You can't prevent the outsourcing of jobs in any even partly free economic system.
When you make the cost of doing business so high as to make ROI meaningless the business will either close, outsource or demand nationalisation such that they no longer have to worry about profitability.
Minimum wage laws do little to benefit society at large, in main part because as the cost of doing business goes up so too does the prices that business must charge to maintain viability. The net result is that the products and services marketed through that company become proportionally unaffordable to the same collection of people that demanded higher minimum wages.
All of these things, while critically important, address only the symptoms of a far more deadly disease. The disease is the perverse imbalance of power between workers and their bosses and their employers.
I fail to see the problem. Bosses are bosses for a reason. For the most part they've invested much time and sweat into getting to a management position - and are willing and able to make sure that business operates for the most part smoothly.
If you have a problem with what bosses are paid - invest the same amount of time and energy into getting into their position and get back to me about how unfair their pay is.
To have a private company run by the workers would be like having the army run by PFC's.
We cannot let stand a system that values and empowers capital and profits over workers. Because if we do, as we have, we endorse a system that concentrates wealth without limits.
How much did Obama raise through donations from wealthy leftists , and what ratio is that to the amount donated to his opposition ?
I get pretty snotty with anyone who would seek to limit my wealth to some arbitrary figure.
Excessively concentrated wealth, through its lobbyists and its campaign dollars, always perverts democracy. All our little lefty websites have really helped highlight that message. Occupy Wall Street, too, has helped highlight that message.
We're a hit. The American public has finally awakened to the reality that the extreme concentration of wealth has perverted any semblance of democracy. This awareness was a long time coming and it still has much further to go.
Yeah - speak to the left about that whole perversion of democracy through lobbyists and campaign dollars. People in glass houses and all that.
As for the OWS crowd - don't believe your own press. You are not the 99%. No one really cares too much about OWS outside the hard left. When even your water-carriers in the MSM give you jack-diddly in the way of air time it's time to accept that the movement, is dead.
The question now will become what to do about the problem
Some will try to restrain the beast with regulation. We'll see the usually parade of campaign finance and lobby reform. It won't work. It never works. It can't work. Big money, brick by brick, will disassemble any walls you might build between democracy and money. If excessive wealth exists, it will always corrupt democratic institutions to serve itself. People need to understand this. The intent of regulation is well-meaning; it cannot ultimately succeed. The beast will always escape your confines.
I'd like you to define exactly what you mean by excessive wealth ? Is it only excessive when it reaches a certain ratio as compared to the poorest person in the country , or have you got an arbitrary figure in mind ?
Regulation might be "well intended" - but regulation compliance is another huge cost of doing business and another main motivating factor for outsourcing and the "brain-drain" where competent staff choose to work elsewhere.
So, what then is the true path to democracy and prosperity?
This is where, sadly, most of us, even those who think of themselves as "the Left", have not awakened at all. Somehow, we have been so deeply brainwashed and hypnotized by all the shiny gold and trinkets, that we've come to believe that the limitless acquisition of wealth is the ultimate entitlement program. "Everyone should be able to acquire as much wealth as they possibly can." We see that as the American way. We that as "freedom". We see that as a meritocracy that rightfully rewards the successful with vast riches.
Everyone should indeed be able to acquire as much wealth as they can. This is indeed freedom. The moment you tell me that I cannot be worth what my abilities can acquire for me - then you are indeed reducing my freedom.
People, you can't have it both ways. The acquisition of unlimited wealth, i.e. a political and economic system that severely concentrates wealth, has poisoned our democracy. You need to let go of the myth that the freedom to acquire and hold excessive wealth can exist side-by-side with democracy. It cannot.
Strawman.
The solutions you've sought that try to temper the abuses of concentrated wealth with regulation have failed. As wealth has grown more concentrated, democracy and prosperity for most of us has radically declined. The only solution to the problem is to cap wealth. We need to radically reduce the concentration of wealth. We need to understand that regulatory measures like higher marginal tax rates with steeper graduation are not going to get the job done. Such measures help with future income but do very little to close the wealth gap.
Yeah - because such measures have worked ever so well when they've been tried in the past , right ?
I realize it may jar your long-held beliefs but it's time to seize wealth and limit it to the point that it can no longer buy a greater share of government than the average citizen has access to. Democracy means equally shared power. Democracy cannot exist when we allow the gap between rich and poor to grow as large as it has.
What you seem to be demanding is equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity. Is this right ?
To quote the OP once again:
'The defense of democratic rights is inseparable from the fight to defend jobs and living standards and is impossible today without a direct assault on the immense concentration of wealth in the hands of a financial oligarchy'."
Your fight to defend your living standards is made behind your desk, or the serving counter and chip fryer. Go for it.
The fight to defend jobs would be made a lot easier if the left wouldn't constantly demand things that make preserving the company that provides those jobse - harder.
So, what do you think? Can democracy survive when unlimited wealth is allowed? I don't think it can, and I think history supports my position. In some important ways, limiting the power of wealth and privilege in order to maintain a stable society can be interpreted as a very conservative point of view. I am saying that unlimited capitalism is not a conservative position, but a radical one that celebrates unlimited selfishness, greed, and lust for power over others.
You're not the first person and won't be the last person to think this way. Seems to me that every previous instance where someone has thought like that and obtained the power to make it so , it has resulted in mass starvation and has had exactly the opposite effect on "democracy" that you seem to think it will.
In order to limit wealth in the way you desire you need a all powerful entity to monitor and ensure compliance - which pretty much means you will have a system that is far less democratic than the one that presently exists.
It is not my intention to start a flame war or to piss anyone off. I just want to see what you think of Welsh's position, with which I wholeheartedly agree, and why. Thanks.
Far as I'm concerned - it's just the thesis of the enemy.
I hope that one day we don't have to look at each other over the trenches, but am less confident it won't come to that each day.
