Based on my personal experience, I used to hate labor unions. I worked in a factory for almost three years and the place was unionized. Closed shop, which means if you don't join the union, you don't work there.
We used to take products off the end of the assembly line, count them, and pack them. I found out my life became a whole lot easier if I went down to the plant floor two or three minutes early and set up a couple packing cartons.
The union stewardess, who was a very nice lady, chewed my ass out over that one. Couldn't I read a clock? Who the hell did I think I was impressing? I wasn't getting paid anymore for doing that, and if I did it, everyone would have to do it. So instead I had to work twice as hard for the whole eight hours and never get caught up.
Another woman on our shift was from Poland. You'd think the Poles would know something about labor unions, wouldn't you? Poland was still communist then, and maybe she believed she'd have more freedom in the USA. This lady was just a manic worker. One of the most productive on our shift. She said staying busy kept her weight down. She knit a sweater on her breaks in a couple days. I mean, she was compulsive.
On the really fast production lines, two people worked at the same work station -- one to take the stuff off the line, count it, and pack it, and a second one to form the cartons. Then the company got these machines for sticking the product into plastic bags instead of corrugated cartons.
This Polish woman was one of the first people in the plant to work with the plastic bagger. She'd pull stuff off the line, count it, and bag it, all by herself. No need for a second carton-maker.
Well, I worked on the other end of the line, but after a couple weeks or so, even I noticed that this Polish lady was being ostracized. No one would talk to her. Anyone who did talk to her -- even to change a dollar for her for the pop machine -- got an elbow nudge or dirty looks from everyone else. I didn't know what this woman had done. The union stewardess explained: She was "taking jobs away."
OK.
Another thing about being in this union. Didn't matter if you were good or bad at your job. We all got paid the same, with raises on the same schedule, based entirely on seniority. Same thing with overtime -- all based on seniority. One co-worker (not the Polish woman) was about six months from retirement, had worked at the plant for 20 years or so, and she was always asked first, by the union stewardess, if she wanted to put in a couple extra hours, at time-and-a-half pay, of course. Unless the place was crammed to the rafters with orders, you didn't get any overtime until the "oldies" had gotten theirs.
At another job I was in a different union, this time doing office work. Same old, same old -- seniority over skill and brains, and even willingness-to-work. I was working 5:00 pm to 1:00 am, when the company announced its Christmas Party. The party was scheduled for the evening hours, and the day shift complained that the night shift was getting an unfair freebie because we could go to the Christmas Party instead of working. So the company made it mandatory for the night shift to go to the Christmas Party, or you got docked for that evening, plus we had to work another shift over the weekend or we wouldn't get paid for the holidays. I guess that made the day shift happy. They shut up about it, anyway.
I complained about it. I even talked to one of the bosses about it, and my co-workers shunned me for that. You're not supposed to make waves.
Since then, I've read quite a bit of history and no longer despise labor unions. They were established for a reason -- because labor was being royally screwed on wages, work weeks were about 60 hours, and many people worked in genuinely horrendous and dangerous conditions. Labor unions truly have provided benefits for American workers. It would be nice if they were optional, though, as they are in right-to-work states.
But I don't want to focus on the positive-negative debate over unions. I only use my experience with them as an example of what life is like under socialism.
In the USA, we all have equal rights under law, but that doesn't mean one size fits all. We're not all equal in our interests, talents, capabilities, or dedication to our jobs. I've always admired people who so love data entry or packing products that they cheerfully devote all their energy to it, and devise ways of doing it better, and stick with it year after year. I get bored, and when I get bored, I get sloppy. I shouldn't be paid as much as them for that kind of work. They actually deserve more than me because they're better employees.
On the other hand, being an independent contractor, I take enormous risks with my income -- and with no safety net. (And end up paying 15+% in Social Security taxes, to boot.) It's not tremendously rewarding financially, but I get bored easily. I'm willing to dork around writing blogs and such for no remuneration as long as I'm my own boss, rather than putting nose to grindstone in someone else's office with the promise of healthcare benefits and a 401(k). It's my choice. I'm happy to live with it. But I wouldn't recommend it for the faint of heart, or for people with young children.
I'm so very appreciative that I have that choice.
You don't get that choice with socialism. You get what everyone else gets. The government -- or whoever runs things -- finds a medium and lops off the top and the bottom. Sure, you could put in extra effort, but you get paid the same as those who don't. The government will pay you what it believes you need. Your personal opinion doesn't matter.
Is this "equality"? Only one twisted version of it.
And the upshot is, there's no incentive to excel. I can tell you from my experience at union shops -- there's no reason to do any more than you have to. Very often people end up doing less, fooling around, wasting time, because, why work? You get paid the same anyway.
The other aspect is the democracy of it. The whole society gets to vote to determine what you want and need -- or at least your congressmen do, or whatever kind of "czar" they appoint to make the decisions. Give the government the power to make those decisions, and you can't decide it for yourself anymore. And it's pretty likely that others will make damn sure that you're not getting any more of anything than they're getting. Because we're all equal, right? We're all the same.
Socialists look at the economy like it's a pie. To them, "fairness" is cutting the pie into equal slices and passing these out. The trouble is, for everyone to get an equal slice, each slice gets tinier and tinier and tinier.... Pretty soon you run out of pie, and people begin to turn on each other.
England tried socialism for a time. Eventually every couple weeks the nation suffered a major labor strike of some kind -- the pie was so damn small, and everyone believed they should have more -- so it was just about impossible to get on with everyday life. Look it up. It happened. Margaret Thatcher is famous for putting an end to it.
Now take that same pie and give it to capitalists, and their solution is to make it bigger. They'll take a bigger slice for themselves because maybe they worked a little harder in the kitchen, but there's also more for everyone else. Work a little harder yourself, and you get more. And you can even bake your own pie.
Of course, with socialism, there's the problem of enforcement, too. Suppose you have a swimming pool in your back yard and you're the only person on the block who does. Well, that's not fair. You'll have to lose the pool or "donate" it to the neighborhood for public use. You don't want to give up your private afternoons sunning beside the pool? Well, we'll have to call the police, then. I mean, who died and made you king over the swimming pool?
We're all different. We have different tastes, different interests, different talents and capabilities. Socialism pretends we're little cookie-cutter products, interchangeable. What's "good" for one is "good" for the other.
If you don't comply, you'll probably get a couple gentle warnings or maybe be ostracized. But if you create a big enough problem, and other people are tempted to rebel by your example, I guarantee, you'll end up in jail. Or some kind of Siberia.
This isn't speculation. This is how socialism operates. This is how it has worked (or not worked) everywhere it's been put into practice.
You like that? Make you wonder about the motives of the folks who promote it? Personally, I can't figure out why anyone wants this kind of system -- except so that maybe they could slack off and still get paid for it.
Or unless they regard themselves as victims, ignorant, stupid, incompetent, unable to make their own decisions, and looking for someone else to take care of them. (See my blog, Thus Oprah hath made victims of us all.)
Or unless they believe that they themselves will be running things, and they'll get to decide what's "good" for everyone. It's different when you're the boss, even under socialism. (See my blog on Power.)
Don't believe it? Check it out. Look especially at European history in the 20th century. Plenty of examples. Many are still ongoing.
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