On the idea of communism - so what did Žižek saj?

[Alinestra Covelia]

Religion doesn't belong in government in the first place, AFAIC.

This is, surprisingly, something that the U.S. Constitution and the People's Republic of China Constitution both agree to.

And who am I to argue with that?

[Kidlicious]

??? Are you referring to Adam Smith? Wealth of Nations was published in 1776, so you're about fifty years off if so. I'll assume you are.

So what? I meant to edit it, but I had to work.

Not really. Total laissez-faire went out of style circa 1900, at least in America.

Not even Adam Smith believed in total laissez-faire. That doesn't change the fact that his assumption about human nature was way off. And the fact is that competition causes all the problems that we face with the current economic system.

Government regulation of the economy does not equal government ownership of capital. Fallacy of the excluded middle.

I don't care how you want to define ownership, but regulation is cooperation basically.


continued later.

[Kidlicious]

Only in a very, very limited sense and for a very short time. What tokens of workers' government we do have (e.g. labor unions) are hopelessly corrupt, and I see no reason why a larger, less restrained version would fare better. Do you want to hear the wacky story of my mother's adventures with the Teamsters?

Everytime I've ever unionized I recieved a pay increase. No complaints here. Cooperation works great, and there's no reason why it can't work on a large scale, in fact the results would be even greater.

[Elok]

Well, while we're submitting anecdotal evidence, I guess I'll supply the aforementioned Teamsters story. My mother worked in a nursing home about a decade ago (teaching nursing assistants). The local chapter of the Teamsters, for reasons known only to God and perhaps themselves, decided to incite the employees of said nursing home to join them, although none of said employees were involved in transport and the Teamsters therefore had no business with them.

The Teamsters told the employees that they were fighting for a $.25 across-the-board raise--everybody from the janitors to the cooks gets an extra quarter per hour. They then went to management and demanded a closed shop, not mentioning raises of any kind. Management told them to piss off, so the Teamsters went back to the employees and said management had refused their demands (technically/literally true). And here's the fun part: due to some absurd law meant to protect unionizing workers, management could not legally tell the employees what really happened unless an employee came up and directly asked them a question such as "what did the Teamsters demand from you?"

This was a decade ago, so I forget all the wacky twists and turns, but my mother's boss was a very powerful, very determined woman who took a special pleasure in crushing the rabble. The only thing the Teamsters accomplished was to get management and the workers POed at each other. Even if they'd succeeded, they were only fighting for a closed shop, ie more power for themselves. Champions of the Working Class

[chequita guevara]

And she knows this how?

[Elok]

As an instructor, she was part of "management." Actually, no, I think by that time she'd been promoted to a managerial position of some sort. Like I said, it was a long time ago, but I remember the bulk of the story.

[Kidlicious]

Closed shops

[chequita guevara]

As an instructor, she was part of "management." Actually, no, I think by that time she'd been promoted to a managerial position of some sort. Like I said, it was a long time ago, but I remember the bulk of the story.

I've heard management's side of the story and 9/10s of the time, management was lying. Unless your mother was part of the negotiations, she was probably fed bull****.

I had one friend of mine, who was actually a leftist, tricked by management into opposing unionization at her plant, because they told her that the union was going to replace all the workers at her plant with former laid off steel workers (she worked at a steel plant). By the time we talked to her to tell her it was a lie (and a ****ing obvious one at that), it was too late.

Unless you live in a "right to work" state, unionization automatically means a closed shop, and if you live in a "right to work" state, then you can't have a closed shop.

There would have had to have been a NLRB overseen election, which you don't mention. It sounds like there was a unionization drive going on. What happens, frequently in these cases is that after the union has obtained enough signed cards the union will make a show of demanding that the company recognize the union. One of two things will happen in this case: the company will recognize the union or the company can demand an election, overseen by the NLRB. If the company recognizes the union, then negotiations begin.

The vast majority of the time, however, the company refuses, then goes into crush the workers mode. It then has months to convince the workers not to vote for the union using methods like lying, captive meetings, threats of job loss (we'll have to move to Mexico), and illegal methods, like firing union supporters and even violence. The methods work, and even if the company is later found guilty (after many years) the company gets to stay non-union. This is almost certainly what happened in your mother's case.

There is a bill up before congress that would change this. Right now, it is the company, not the workers, that decide if there will be an election. That's like putting foxes in charge of guarding the hen house. The Employee Free Choice Act puts the decision in the hands of the workers. If 50% +1 of the employees sign up for the union, the company is unionized and negotiations begin (if the company refuses to negotiate in good faith, it goes to an arbitrator). If 30% of the employees want an election, then there will be an election.

[Wezil]

This is, surprisingly, something that the U.S. Constitution and the People's Republic of China Constitution both agree to.

And who am I to argue with that?

Sadly they don't follow this policy both ways. They do have government involvement in religion.

[Kidlicious]

IMO the more economic crisis we experience the more popular Marxist economic theory will become. That's because only according to Marxist theory does capitalism tend towards crisis.

[Alinestra Covelia]

Sadly they don't follow this policy both ways. They do have government involvement in religion.

Truth. In America, it's government that's under siege, trying to keep religion out.

In China, it's religion that's under siege, as the government tries to contain religious groups.