Democrat's Apathy For Unions Is Suicide

[beerandjesus]

211. Oh, it's absolutely appalling how Boeing's been doing that....

...but what's even worse is that a single private corporation is able to wield so much power over the citizens of two states, and to do so with absolute impunity.

What I really don't understand, especially among the so-called "Libertarians" I run into here, is how people don't see that strong unions are, at least potentially, an alternative to bigger government. Admittedly, the corporate hegemons have a lot of liberty to ignore organized labor, as they did in the late 19th century, if they're not legally compelled to recognize it; but once that psychological hurdle is crossed, if you really believe in "small government", I don't see how you can do better than unions to remedy the obvious imbalance of power between a large corporation and an individual worker.

There's definitely a lot of social conservatism here in South Carolina, but it seems that a lot of smart people gravitate toward libertarianism over Republican-style fascism--and it's not all that surprising, given that genuinely liberal voices are few and far between. Libertarianism, by default, becomes an enlightened alternative. As far as I'm concerned, that's a good first step, since it gets them on board with a lot of important social issues, but as an economic populist, I'm much more concerned with people ultimately recognizing that being oppressed by corporations is no better than being oppressed by government. Unions are incredibly weak here; the South has historically been hostile to unions in a way that was never the case in, say, the Midwest. But my hope is that, over time, that will change--and I know that a lot of good people are working their asses off to get Boeing here unionized!