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Kim O\x27Brien
ReasonTV
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Comments by "Kim O\x27Brien" (@kimobrien.) on "Don't Expect Unions To Make a Comeback" video.

That's what Imperialism is. The movement of capital to foreign nations for greater profits where it can more easily defended by military force. USMC Major General Smedley Butler explained it in "War is a Racket" as did Lenin in "Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism."
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@Johnjackjack At business school they teach the prospective bosses that unions cost the bosses in overall profits,.That's why bosses oppose unions unless they are faced with no other choice. They agreed to accept unions because of strikes and protest demanding union representation.
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gnbutler First if the company had their way you wouldn't get any hearing whatsoever. You be an "employee at will" on the outside looking in. That said arbitration always favors the bosses and the unions need to use union power to negotiate not arbitrate.
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@timpoolsbeanie2296 Libertarians start with assumptions like voluntary trade being free, private property being necessary due to limited resources and a state being only necessary to defend property rights. The when their assumptions which are at the core of modern capitalism don't produce a good outcome they blame it on state intervention. So in essence their reasoning is circular. The choose the axioms for their ideal system and when it doesn't produce a desired result blame the state but who is the state if not the executive committee of the property owners.
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@francescomorales7812 The capitalist seeks to maximize profits. To do so he seeks to pay the lowest wages and work us the longest hours in a pay period and charge the highest prices. The capitalist seeks to pay only the social minimum for the reproduction of our labor in a pay period yet get back the total value of what we produce in that same pay period. .
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You can always follow the male orangutan into the jungle and swing from tree to tree eating low hanging fruit.
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@WarningStrangerDanger Its only natural that some things be centralized and other decentralized. Time is an example of centralization. Is it the same time everywhere on Earth? How about the way people think about time and how that has changed. .
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@yodaguy6956 LOL Like the bosses never passed the Taft Hartley Act requiring unions certify themselves to be free of "Communist Party" members.
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@TheRisky9 Insurance companies are an example of finance capitalism like the banks. They were formed by the need to spread risk across the ownership class.
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@russetwolf13 The teach the bosses to be anti union in business schools because they explain that when a union is established bosses no longer have a free hand and profits suffer such that any advantage the union might provide the bosses like a more stable wrkforce isn't worth the added expense.
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@jabrokneetoeknee6448 Workers power is weakened by the class collaborationist leadership of the unions. Support for the Democratic Party in the US and the reformist social democrats in the so called Nordic countries where monarchs still rein. These Social Democratic gentleman keep the workers chained to the capitalist bosses despite winning elections. Their cheif role is to protect the bosses profits and property as the caretakers of capitalism. Their chief role is to negotiate away wages and increase givebacks to the bosses.
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The problem for the bosses is the union movemnet is an international movement of workers.
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@Johnjackjack The successful teachers strike wave was conducted in mostly right to work states ans state which forbid teachers strikes.
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@Khajiidaro The is because the government is the executive committee of the ruling class.
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@Johnjackjack Bosses want us working the longest hours for the lowest wages to make the biggest profits. They only want to pay what you will accept to come back to work for the next pay period.
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@Artcore103 The unions are defensive organizations of the working class what the unions need to do is organize a labor party and use that party as way to make gains for the working class as a whole. Since the Democrats and Republicans are the parties of the bosses.
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@Artcore103 Its the bosses and their government that are short sighted. Their world system of production and trade is crisis ridden because of the natural way in which capitalism works.
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@Artcore103 The weakness in capitalism is that the capitalist seek to make profits and that does not necessarily coincide with the creation of value. The capitalist are the involuntary promoters of modern industry. In doing so capital becomes ever more concentrated and monopolistic. Capitalism generates no wealth in and of itself which why all the modern capitalist economists must deny that the profits are created by labor. This is why the must mystify the creation of wealth. All the early classical economist including adam smith agreed with the labor theory of value. All this talk of how the government is interfering with the smart bosses is just so much nonsense designed to mystify how value is created. Anyone can play the role of the bosses fighting to make the biggest profits with the other industries. What they can't do escape the decline of industry when you run out of markets for products you can't sell at a profit and the international competition between the bosses of different capitalist seeking to make profits for their ruling class. You can't escape the creation of crisis and the drive to make the biggest profits until you end up in a situation like what the world economic forum cries about. All people like you talk about is how we need to give another bunch of capitalist the new opportunity to do the same thing those who proceed them did. How does going bankrupt help when you create an economic crisis like 2008? Sure lets all lock the doors send everyone home and wait for federal judges to decide whose fault the crisis was. Bezos took advantage of the possibility to centralise the search for products beginning with books using internet communications and computer technology. His ability to act as a middleman of gigantic proportions was made possible by the falling costs of computer technology. People such as yourself as easily mystified by numbers and machines.
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@Artcore103 The real problem is that capitalism, trade and money don't produce a damn thing. Capitalism success is based in modern industry and change from the division of labor into a division of machines tasks with the use of generalized social labor in its place.
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@Artcore103 It's not a coincidence that when capitalist overproduce for markets that can't buy back all that can be produced and that they then use their profits to drive up the value of fictitious capital until it collapses creating an economic crisis. Nor is it a coincidence that unlimited competition leads to war between the capitalist classes orgainized into nation states. World War one was the result of Imperialism the highest stage of capitalism as was world war two. Had the stalinist and social democratic labor leaders not betrayed the world revolution capitalism would not have received a new lease on life after world war two. This however is the era of war and revolution with the lesson of the Russian and Cuban Revolution still making an impact upon world history. The era of fascism was defeated at great cost by the Soviet Workers. The final battle between labor and capital will take place in the United States as once the American capitalist ruling class is defeated the rest of the world will stand up and cheer.
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Trainrhys The whole history of American capitalism is that when a strike is effective the bosses turned to state and military violence to break strikes. Starting with the great railway strike of 1877. The same year Republican's betrayed Southern Reconstruction governments with the compromise of 1877. They also throw Constitutional rights out the window when they face a militant labor leadership. In 1940 FDR began the second witch hunt with the Smith "gag" Act prosecution of 18 leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and Minneapolis Teamsters for opposition to the coming Imperialist war.
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@RealMTBAddict Bosses can find the money in those big profit statements. Put the bosses on a diet go on strike now.
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@RealMTBAddict What's keeping you from taking up a collection for the bosses crys of poverty?
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@oceania2385 The Retail Clerks were at one time considered a skilled and white collar workers because it was a clean and relatively safe job compared to jobs in industries like auto, steal, rail, coal and meatpacking. Clerks actually had to do math or operate a cash register. .
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@oceania2385 Right and if you look at the federal Reserve stats it will show that wages rose with productivity from 1945 until about 1973. The long retreat by labor is over. Strikes and protests are on the rise. Workers at UPS are "just practicing" to picket.
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@oceania2385 Actual workers don't move the needle? Okay don't keep me in suspense what did comrade Gramsci say that you believe is so important? Since he sided with Stalin against Trotsky only to die in prison and have his relatives latter accuse Stalin of letting him die there that outcome in life certainly doesn't say much for him. Trotsky didn't die alone in prison. He left the nucleus of a Leninist working class party in the United States. Fidel Castro came along and lead a revolution that is still making history and that the American Imperialist have not been able to extinguish. The economic crisis of world capitalism is having the same kind of effect on the American workers it did the British just before the British General Strike and the rise of the labor party. Wages stagnated in Britain for years and the reformists said the British workers would never go into class struggle, Post war capitalist prosperity in the developed world ended with the crisis of 2008. Go to Pathfinder Press and order some books.
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@oceania2385 Zero defaulted and paid off years ago. Why?
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@oceania2385 No because to default only means you didn't pay on time.
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@oceania2385 My loans were a small part of an education never completed. I think what you are referring to is the long term tendency of profit rates to decline as capital replaces labor. That is what to Social Democratic leaders like Edward Bernstein began to question because the lives of the German workers and middle class before the war saw an improvement. It was Lenin who came to the conclusion this was possible for a few because of opportunism and Imperialism that for a small part of the working class to be bought off with improvements. This was made possible he concluded because of the super profits generated by Imperialism and the opportunism of the trade union leaders in getting better conditions for a few skilled workers.
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@oceania2385 The point is that the material gains made with the trade unions are always temporary because as soon as the workers return to work under capitalist rule they are placed back in competition with each other. The real gains are made in the ever greater and larger organization and confidence of the proletariat.
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@oceania2385 I'm retired but been a past member of Hotel workers, Teamsters, IUE, USWA, IBEW, and CWA.
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@oceania2385 The liberal FDR put 18 of our leaders of the Minneapolis Teamsters and the Socialist Workers Party on trial in 1940 with the Smith "gag" Act. During the trial the question of the Workers Defense Guards that drilled in Minneapolis after the fascist sliver shirts had been invited by the bosses was raised for violence baiting. Jim Cannon rose in the federal Court room and testified, "We say the workers have a right to defend themselves and if that is treason so be it." The whole trial testimony of Jim Cannon was printed as a pamphlet called "Socialism on Trial." Everyone says its one of the most convincing arguments for socialism ever made. We later put the FBI on trial in Socialist Workers Party vs Attorney General. A capitalist Federal Judge in New York held Jimmy "Human Rights" Carter's Attorney General in contempt of court for refusing to turn over informer files that revealed a forty year war on political rights guaranteed in the US Constitution.
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@nonyadamnbusiness9887 Unions provide the workers with the experience of running their own organizations without the bosses. They learn how to use solidarity to defeat the bosses in the class struggle.
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Those are basically greed regulation laws passed by the executive committee of the ruling class. Naturally they fail because they are placed under corp. control.
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@Kitkat-986 The workers waged militant strikes. In Minneapolis the Teamsters had flying picket squads that stopped all the truck traffic in the city. In Flint, MI the Auto Workers took over a whole GM fisher body plant told the bosses to go home and fought off the cops with chevy door hinges.
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@Kitkat-986 Don't join then. Union membership is voluntary.
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@Kitkat-986 You know what I'd like a custom set of rules for myself also. People went to prison under the Smith Gsg Act in 1940 because they were leaders of the Minneapolis Teamsters union and Socialist Workers Party. To the best knowledge the government never put anyone in jail for not paying union dues unlike paying taxes including the telephone tax that was passed specifically to pay for Vietnam. You want a state issued gov. licence you pay a fee and if you try and practice without one you'll find out the penalties can be harsh. See if you can get away with being a lawyer without a law degree and license. They lock people up for practicing medicine without a license. .
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@Kitkat-986 No see we don't agree on the free market theology. Because then you'd want to pay the lowest wages for the longest hours at the fastest pace to make the biggest profits. As it is now workers can't afford to start a family and have children because you neo liberals have created a world of poverty economic crisis and insecurity for those without property. If capitalism can't pay the social wages to replace the current generation with a new one than the ruling class no longer has a right to rule. You've run everyone and everything into the ground with your ruling classes neoliberal supply and demand limited resource nonsense theories about everything.
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@Kitkat-986 Bosses compete for capital investment based upon rate of return. That's out of our control. You like to move as much labor into fly by night contracting and away from the actual industrial capital. Capitalism works to replace higher paid skilled labor with machines and unskilled labor. That's why "getting a skill" is not a real solution. The problem this also poses is the one of a declining rate of return on capital investment since labor is the source of profit while capital value rises and the labor time to produce goes down. These slumping profit rates in highly capitalised industries discourage profit driven needed investment. We can't fix a fact of life under capitalism. Second your politicians write these greed and not in my backyard regulations then enforce them with your cops. You don't want to spend any tax money building housing because it would interfere in the Real Estate Tycoons ability to profit. What was it 2.3 Trillion for that exercise in "Nation Building War" in Afghanistan. How many trillions do you plan on spending to maintain a nuclear posture? Milton Freedman and others like Thomas Sowell have been telling you what you want to believe about your system for years and now much like the lies told by the Stalinists the chickens have come home to roost. Instead of the "Ownership Society" you have a "Debtors Society" instead of instead of a rising tide lifting all boats the tide went out and beached all the small craft. Instead of a "New World Order" where the rule of law replaces the rule of the jungle you have a "New World Disorder" Where other players see a "rule based order" as a "fixed game". People like college degreed real estate lawyers and professional babysitters in social work have been crying about the pay of electricians and plumbers for since Genesis. Wages not keeping up with inflation is what happens when you disconnect the value of currency with either labor time or a commodity like gold that can be relatively stable in the labor cost of production. You have a system that all but lets you print free money for loans to the biggest banks in the country. So instead of issuing the old fashion wage cut you have the inflatable currency that raises the value of property vs wages.
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@Kitkat-986 When they build new machinery or set up a new assembly line its always done with the object of using less skill and less labor time to produce. The idea that they will hire more skilled workers overall just isn't true. They'd had backhoes for at least 50 years now machine operation like a backhoe is like driving a car you learn the basics and the rest is practice.They don't pay the backhoe operator ten times the wage because the wage payment is based upon the cost to reproduce the workers labor for the next pay period. The 10 guys you say would dig the same hole in the same time would each need to be paid the cost of their time to reproduce their labor for the pay period. The bosses pay you the wages to reproduce your labor power for the next pay period. They can make a profit by you creating more value than your wages paid. The backhoe contractor could not change more than the price the hand shoveler did. Over time the price he can change sinks towards the actual cost. Painting and plastering is a better example because the skill and time needed to pain with a brush and put plaster on lathe has been replaced with spray/roller and sheet rock. They got rid of lots of draftsmen, clerical workers telephone operators replacing them with computers. Lots of machine shop equipment is computer controlled. They have gotten rid of as many things that will need repair or regular replacement as possible. If they decide they need a lot people (labor shortage) with a certain skill for a new factory the bosses get the government to run a training program. The investors want the highest rate of profit (profits/capital invested). They invest both in fixed capital (machinery, tools) that depreciates over time and circulating capital (wages, material and rents) that returns directly after the product is sold.
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@Kitkat-986 Look I'm not going to argue with you You believe whatever you like. No a skilled worker is not worth several unskilled workers since like I said the bosses pay based upon the cost to reproduce your labor. When the productivity increase you wage no longer even follows. That was true from 1945 and ended in 1973. Since then almost all productivity gains go to the bosses. The Federal Reserve Bank Stats show that. The average backhoe operator makes $27.02/hr. You go ahead and see who you can get to dig holes 10 hours a day 6 days a week. If backhoe operator can do the work of ten. If they give you a machine that ups your productivity by 10 they aren't going to up your pay by 2 never mind 10. You don't believe me? Well you find out the hard way.
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@WarningStrangerDanger Time and the concept of time has changed. The British were the first to build clocks accurate enough such that could be carried in sea going vessels giving the British navy the ability to map the world. Newton's idea of time was that it passed at the same rate for all observers. Einstein changed the whole we we think about time incorporating it into space and passing at different rates depending the quantity of matter located nearby. Obviously time is extremely important for travel, transport and in everything we build or measure. The GPS system was originally built to be able to successful launch guided missiles from submarines and hit targets. GPS relies on Einstein's Theory of General Relativity in order to properly calculate location on the planet. The modern world would not be possible without clocks and the ability to measure time. I quess you never heard the phrase "Time is money." Time is intimately bound up with change and information. Ignore time at your own peril.
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@WarningStrangerDanger Maybe not but show me one that can either ignore time or not argue about time. Labor Tools Education Organization and Time are all central to human life on earth. Workers organize and join unions because we want a say over how work is done and our lives at work. The first unions were based on trades, then on industry, the next step is to build s labor party based upon the unions as a whole to battle the bosses in the political sphere of the government.
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Bosses chasing bigger profits closed down Detroit.
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Profit hungry bosses move operations elsewhere. The blackmail you and if you agree to a wage cut they move anyway.
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@joanhuffman2166 The IRS collects you money at the point of a gun as you libertarian's love to say. The unions collect dues voluntarily. You don't have to join or go to meetings. No one has ever gone to jail for not paying union dues unlike taxes.
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The ruling class already has a monopolies on everything as it stands now.
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They are called convenience stores and they are monopolized into large corp like Circle K usually connected to the oil and gasoline company bosses.
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They can vote for whoever they want and the can almost always vote on either the contract or the leadership directly. Once every year they can vote the union itself either in or out.
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@_Solaris The same corp. profit hungry bosses run the government into the ground as too expensive for them and their big profit low wages government policies.
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@Da__goat The profit drive of the greedy capitalist bosses leads to a working class struggle against them and their crisis ridden profit system. The first actions the workers take is to take to using union power against the bosses. The bosses respond by calling on their capitalist government to intervene against the workers. Then the workers union leaders will begin to take up the task of creating a new labor party independent of the bosses to win the battle of democracy in the government. Organization is the fruit of strikes and protests against the capitalist bosses and their system and the real road to a socialist world system without the greedy capitalist bosses.
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Why not make healthcare a human right and pay for it like roads and education.
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I think we could use an amendment abolishing the use of property for purposes of economic exploitation.
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You missed the part where the libertain's raise the idea of property rights above all others and to be defended at all costs as the source of all rights and no interference allowed. .
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LOL you mean a public boss.
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@MaestroAlvis Unions came into being when workers decided it was necessary to have permanent organizations that could be used against the bosses when the need arrises. They are defensive organizations which make use of soildarity to battle dog eat dog capitalist competition in the workplace. .
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@dekippiesip Capitalism works to replace higher paid skilled labor with unskilled labor and machines. Their is nothing special about a business owner anyone can learn how profits are made by reading Karl Marx. Value Price and Profit, Wage Labor and Capital or Das Kapital. What the capitalist can't do is maintain their social system system of wage labor exploitation.
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@eddyvideostar The production workers produce the actual value while the profits are result of unpaid wages for the surplus value produced by the production workers. This is why capitalism always produces class struggle between labor and capital. The bigger and more powerful capital becomes so also does the natural tendency of the rate of profit to decline. So to do the bosses become ever more petty more cruel and more condescending to the workers. This is why the workers struggle becomes one for justice in every sphere of society. For no sooner than do you bring home that wage until you are set upon by al manner of bill collectors, rent gougers, grocery bosses and tax collectors.
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Most of the cities are under Democratic control so why would you build a large warehouse outside of a city area? Would in make sense to put it in the sand hills of Nebraska or Somewhere in the middle of Nevada? You'd need a whole infrastructure to build a company town in the middle of no where.
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They can't export everything and we can organize foreign born workers into unions both here and abroad.
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@Teekey90 Its been managed based upon profit maximization. As long as the capitalist maintain control of private property they will do everything possible to maximize profits for themselves. That is why they have established the property owners government.
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But they can be run for the benefit of the workers unlike a company based upon ownership of capital.
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@eddyvideostar They are all members of the working class and their pay depends on the workers voting for the union in an election. When the bosses had to begin negotiating with unions then they began looking for ways to choose the leaders of the unions and to turn them into toothless organizations.
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The neo liberals cut them down as too costly now cheap government functions by using K St lobbyist who write all legislation for the company bosses.
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The Democrats want union votes and union leaders in their pockets but the Democratic Party is organized and paid for by the company bosses. The unions are organizations financed by the working class membership alone. The capitalist can help but fail in their pursuit of profits. That means they can help but provoke class struggle. Their system is failing world wide.
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Why not just come out and say we should all just become trailer trash? Move every few months when the bosses close up shop.
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What free market? You got s gun pointed at everyones head demanding your price at Walmart there is no bargaining. You want to pay the lowest wages, work us the longest hours and charge the highest prices and claim its because your the owner.
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Bosses have been robbing us blind by using central bank generated inflation to cut wages. Bosses use to have to increase wages with productivity until about 1973 when Nixon "temporarily" ended the gold standard. Since then they have been in a war on the unions closing down shops and moving out of state and out of the country for lower wages.
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@eddyvideostar Ya all you clean office bosses such a bunch of lovely *****.
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Investors not wage earners should take the losses since they have money they don't need. You'll just run hat in hand to the government for another bailout anyway.
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@RealMTBAddict Why would the bosses just give you that money you never see in your check? All you need to do is look at the homeless population to see the workings of BOSS charity.
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So the should be anti social?
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@yodaguy6956 Capitalism always works to replace higher paid skilled labor with unskilled labor and machines. Just look at the way jobs were done years ago in the construction industry. Before Drywall Plasterers use to plaster walls and painters used brushes instead of rollers and spray. Nail were struck with a hammer not with a nail gun.. A welder had to learn how raise and lower his mask constantly. PVC has replaced lots of electrical and plumbing pipe.
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@jabrokneetoeknee6448 Unions never lost their power the officials lost their willingness to fiigt. The bosses government is for them no matter which party is elected.
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Ya India the country with the Bhopal Union Carbide chemical plant disaster. An estimate 8,000 deaths and a 500,000 exposed to toxic gas. They sure have tough labor laws.
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Fire the lazy? For what so you can pay taxes for welfare, out on the streets as criminals or to have them locked up in profit making hell holes. You talk about firing the lazy as if Bill Gates doesn't understand that you need to eat much more than another operating system. If laziness was a human problem then Bourgeois Society would have collapsed a long time ago. .
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That's a quote from the anti marxist Thomas Sowell. Professors like him are for the bosses because they are intellectual servants paid to sit in a chair and sing the praise of their masters the ruling capitalist bosses. Unions would not exist if workers didn't want them just as Sowell would not have a career as a bourgeois professor of economics if he came to the wrong conclusions on Fidel Castro. .
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