Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "The Union Boss and the Most Successful Race Car in History" video.

And some people wonder why unions earned such a bad reputation
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@Dwightstjohn-fo8ki The concept of evil robber barons is largely a myth created by progressive writers of the 19th and 20th century. It's easy for people to believe their claims when applying 21st century standards to 19th century America. This is not to say that writers such as Upton Sinclair did not expose some bad working conditions through sensational muckraking stories, but the assertions that these barons were keeping Americans in poverty were not supported by the facts. In truth the early industrialists offered affordable products on a mass scale and helped create the American middle class. As an example, in 1914 Henry Ford doubled his line workers' salaries to the unheard of amount of five dollars a day (he later regretted the decision when times got tough and the now powerful unions would not compromise). Like so many noble ideas, after their early hard-won successes, many larger unions became bureaucratically bloated and corrupt. In this sense I find much commonality between them, corporations, and government, which might explain why we see so many of their senior personnel shift easily between the three. All bear considerable watching.
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