Comments Elsewhere

Delance: Are libertarian in favor of unions now?

Yes. The Central Committee approved the resolution Thursday. Didn’t you get the memo?

Holmes, here’s my favorite part of the North article, right at the beginning:

“The strike was illegal under the state law, just as the present one is. Mike Quill, the head of the union and one of its founders in 1934, was ordered by the judge to return with his union to operate the transportation system. Quill responded to the press: ‘The judge can drop dead in his black robes. I don’t care if I rot in jail. I will not call off the strike.’ … The union is obviously proud of Quill’s defiance.”

What villains they must be, to celebrate someone who ignored The Law and defied a court order. Next thing you know, they’ll probably call for something unconstitutional, too.

Me, to Wilde: Or, to put it another way: if you aren’t offering a class analysis of the transit strike, what level of analysis are you offering? Individual?

Berg: Interest group analysis?

And interest groups whose membership are are defined by their jobs, income levels, and level of control over terms of employment are usually called “classes,” or (more precisely) “socioeconomic classes.” Aren’t they?

Schuele: Jonathan seems to be saying that none of the typical conglomerations deemed “classes” have a unified self-interest, as is suggested by some.

I don’t know what you mean by “a unified self-interest.” There are lots of things that you might mean when you apply a predicate to a set. Is it supposed to mean (a) “a self-interest shared by each and every member of the class,” (b) “a self-interest mostly shared by members of the class” (with some kind of statistical meaning attached to “mostly”), (c) “a self-interest typically shared by members of the class (under normal conditions)”, (d) “a self-interest not necessarily shared by individual members of the class but somehow held by the class itself,” or something else?

I ask because if you mean (a), then I don’t know of any class theorists who have suggested that classes have “a unified self-interest” in that sense. (I think they typically mean something more like (c), although I suppose there may be some who, through various sorts of mystification, try to hold (d).) In any case, if you mean (b)-(d), then Wilde’s merely pointing out that there are members of the class who individually don’t share the class’s self-interest does not tell against the accuracy of class analysis, any more than poor Tibbles, who has been maimed and shaved, tells against the accuracy of a natural history documentary that says “Domestic cats have four legs and a soft coat of fur.”

If, on the other hand, you mean something more like claim (c), as I think Jonathan seems to, then the sort of exceptions you’d need to point out to even begin undermining the analysis have to be systematic exceptions to the alleged uniformity of self-interest. Which Jonathan does do, above. But the thing is that the systematic exceptions he points out are exceptions on the basis of factors that we usually take to differentiate between socioeconomic classes — jobs, pay, control over terms of employment, etc. — and in spite of his later protest that “It ain’t about big guys vs little guys” he explicitly says above that this is about bigger vs. littler guys: “Some little guys are bigger than other little guys. Any special benefit that any particular union garners for one set of little guys comes at the detriment not just from businesses, but also from other little guys.”

He seems to suggest toward the end that conscious organization, or perhaps access to the political means, better explain systematic differences of interest within the supposed “working class” than factors that mark out socioeconomic classes. But (1) the idea that either of those factors are independent of socioeconomic class is not at all obvious, and (2) neither saying “group X is better organized on behalf of its interests than group Y” or “group X has a greater ability to serve its interests through political pressure than group Y” explains what it is about group X and group Y that make for the difference in interests to be served in the first place. In the case that Jonathan seems to be discussing, the difference seems to be made on the basis of the socioeconomic factors I mentioned. (Specifically, the distinction between an “aristocracy of labor” and workers that are comparatively less well-off in terms of jobs, income, and organizational resources — a class distinction within the larger working class that has been discussed and fleshed out by many analysts who gladly make use of class analysis, and in regard to the history of labor organizing in particular.)

Kennedy: Say what? In a market unions can’t do anything “at the expense” of others since the only people who will do business with them are those that profit from doing business with them.

Well, I think there’s clearly a sense of “expense” and “detriment” in the English language, under which peaceful market competition can produce profits at the expense of, or be to the detriment of, third parties. (Businesspeople use it all the time — if Wal-Mart is eating K-Mart’s lunch, then there is some sense in which Wal-Mart’s competition is detrimental to K-Mart’s owners, or Wal-Mart’s greater profits are coming at the expense of K-Mart.) Of course, what I think you’re right to point out here is that these senses of “expense” and “detriment” aren’t senses in which profiting at someone’s expense, or doing something to their detriment, is in itself an objectionable thing to do.

To be fair, though, Jonathan et al. are operating from the presumption that unions are availing themselves of legal coercion in order to enforce their bargaining position, in ways that unorganized workers aren’t able to. (That’s true enough, but I think that the balance of political power in the late strike, given that it was against a government employer that had the power to throw union organizers in jail for continuing to strike, and publicly contemplated doing so, is clearly not in favor of the union.)

Jonathan, I think that your analysis leaves a lot of questions unanswered, but suppose we grant, arguendo, that this is a good account of how things are. Now what? Are we supposed to give up class analysis? If so, why? It seems that what you’ve offered here is just a claim that there are more classes than simply a monolithic managerial class and a monolithic working class, and that some classes of workers might seek to benefit at the expense of others?

(Or, to put it another way: if you aren’t offering a class analysis of the transit strike, what level of analysis are you offering? Individual?)

Generally speaking, the idea of an “aristocracy of labor,” and of the possibility that people at higher strata within the working class might try to benefit at the expense of people at lower strata — including by means of labor unions — is not exactly new. In fact it’s a standard part of many radical Left critiques of the AFL and related unions. (See Paul Buhle’s Taking Care of Business for one example.) It doesn’t demonstrate “the poverty of class analysis;” it just demonstrates the need for, well, richer class analysis.

Patrick: “Warrantless surveillance of American citizens is expressly forbidden by FISA and the Bush Administration is a threat to democracy.”

Just to test what counterfactuals are supported here, if warrantless surveillance of American citizens weren’t legally forbidden, would you be O.K. with Bush doing it?

Knapp: “The warrantless wiretaps are clearly and unambiguously illegal. I know it. You know it. Babbin and York knew it. And Bush knew it.”

This is very probably true. But if it weren’t illegal, do you think that would have made it O.K. for Bush to order warrantless domestic spying?

You do know that one of Morales’ major planks was opposition to the Drug War, and one of his major bases of support were Indian coca-leaf growers who were under systematic assault from the previous government, right?

I think the outcome in Bolivia may be more mixed than you give it credit for.

“There is no guarantee that any of these are Green-friendly, but anyone opposed to neoliberalism can’t be entirely bad.”

This principle is clearly false.

Of course gay-bashing by immigrants in Rotterdam constitutes a serious problem. But part of what I’m trying to suggest is that the “by immigrants” plays no important explanatory role in understanding or resisting it. If they had been brought up the same way but hadn’t moved to Holland (or been born into families that moved to Holland), I expect that they’d bash gay people wherever they did end up. Homophobia and male supremacy are what you ought to single out for analysis and criticism, not immigrant status.

Kennedy: Will you concede that many of Tookie’s supporters holding Schwarzenegger to this standard are not holding the former leader of the Crips to anything remotely like the same standard?

I wouldn’t know; I haven’t talked to many of them. I don’t think that an answer can be read off the public statements I’ve read or the ones you’ve pointed to.

Whether or not they’re holding Tookie Williams to the same standard as Arnold Schwarzenegger depends on (1) whether or not they believe that he’s guilty of murder at all, and (2) if they do think he’s guilty, whether or not they think that the murders he committed were as bad or worse than Schwarzenegger’s participation in having him killed.

As for (1), some people think that he’s innocent, at least of the murders that he was slaughtered for; and that belief may or may not be dishonest — I wouldn’t know — but if it is, the dishonesty doesn’t have anything in particular to do with comparative judgments with Schwarzenegger. If he is innocent, then there just isn’t any question of holding people to the same standard at all, since they don’t believe that they both did the same thing.

As for (2), how would I know? I haven’t seen any statements comparing the two at all, or resting on an implied comparison between Williams and Scharzenegger. You might think it’s implied if they (a) believe Williams is a mass-murderer, but (b) try to portray him as a good person nevertheless, while not extending the same charity, or indulgence, towards Schwarzenegger. But it seems obvious to me that how you take someone’s past violence to bear on their character depends a lot on whether it was committed a quarter century ago or less than a week ago. Again, maybe people who think that Williams genuinely repented of his past are fooling themselves — again, I wouldn’t know — but again, it’s unclear what the dishonesty in question would have to do with Schwarzenegger, who had a man killed not a week ago and to all appearances sticks by his sincerely-felt endorsement of it.

I’m sure there are plenty of people who opposed killing Tookie Williams who were being dishonest — that’s true of most political movements and there are specific facts about the conditions under which campaigns against a particular death sentence are conducted that encourage dishonest arguments (it’s a person’s life at stake, the time is limited, the arguments most likely to succeed are arguments against the verdict rather than the sentence, etc. etc. etc.). That sucks, and I don’t like it or engage in it, but it’s not clear that the phenomenon has to do with differing standards for outrage.

Kennedy: Rad’s running interference for people who don’t mean what he means. Schwarzenegger was called a cold blooded killer to condemn him, but there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with cold blooded killing as Rad lays it out. A man may justly kill even if his blood isn’t hot. No, they were saying that Schwarzenngger was doing as bad or worese than what Tookie was convicted of. That’s not the case.

When you say “No, they were saying that Schwarzenngger was doing as bad or [worse] than what Tookie was convicted of. That’s not the case,” do you mean to complain that it’s in fact not the case and that Williams’s supporters were wrong to believe otherwise, or that they don’t even believe that it’s the case, and so were being inconsistent or dishonest to imply it? If it’s the former, then why do you suggest they’re not holding both men to the same standard, instead of just saying that their standards are wrong? If it’s the latter, what grounds do you have for saying that? If it’s that you think that death sentences for convicted murderers aren’t as bad as freelance murders of the innocent, then again, it’s unclear why the issue is supposed to be dishonesty rather than error. If it’s that they think that death sentences for convicted murderers aren’t as bad as freelance murders of the innocent, why would that death penalty opponents believe that?

That’s connected with my reasons for “running interference” through a narrowly literalistic reading of the words involved. I think that bullshitting through word-choice is one of the ways that people avoid real arguments about matters of life and death, particularly when they’re connected with the State, and I’d like to put a stop to it. I also think that in this particular case it conceals where the real argument lies. Greenwald explicitly claims, and you seem to want to suggest (maybe you don’t; if so, my bad) that you ought to object to the way that Tookie’s supporters are carrying on about Schwarzenegger and the hangman State broadly whether or not you believe that the death penalty is justified, because it involves dishonesty or hypocrisy. I think that the moral status of the death penalty as applied to Williams is the only genuine issue in the debate, but that this is concealed by using language that covers over what a death sentence is. The actual complaint is that Schwarzenegger is being held to standards that Greenwald disagrees with, not that he’s being held to a different standard from Tookie Williams, or to a different standard from Iran or China or whatever other slaughterhouse we’re supposed to be denouncing first thing this morning. The shift in language from “cold-blooded killing” to “the execution of the unquestionably guilty mass murderer and violent gang founder Tookie Williams — after a jury trial and multiple judicial appeals” makes it easier to talk in a way that effectively presupposes that killing Williams wasn’t a serious offense that anyone ought to care about, and so helps license the classic “And what about your blacks in the South?” feint.

Nobody is “throwing” North Africans or Turks into Europe. They are choosing to move there because they have reasons (usually political and/or economic ones) for wanting to leave their old country. Need it be mentioned that the kind of immigration restriction that Fortuyn ardendly supported would require overriding those reasons, at bayonet point, and placing the decision in the hands of State bureaucrats?

Do you think that if more homophobic and patriarchal people were to stay in North Africa or Turkey that would make it better for gay people and women? What about gay people and women in North Africa and Turkey?