Seeing as I have a test in a little under two hours, I'll try to keep this post brief. A few things, I think, are of note this morning: (1) Wal-Mart is afraid a Democrat might get elected; (2) Orson Scott Card is raving, again; and (3) Senator McCain's ads are getting stoopider.
Let us begin with Wal-Mart, who, apparently, are telling all their managers that "if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart." Wal-Mart, along with much of corporate America, have learned how to keep unions out, using both legal and illegal tactics. They fear a Democrat in the White House, because he (or she) might allow store employees a punch card vote, "which," according to Ezra Klein, "would make it so workers would have a vote on whether they want a union, as opposed to the current situation where they can't even get an election called before they're fired."
Of course, we're living in an age when unions are considered evil--at worst--and obsolete--at best. Armed with ECON 101 textbooks, flawed models, and a academic legacy of economic conservatism, even young progressives are tending to see unions in a negative light. This because, after all, unions can overreach--something, obviously, which corporations never do. And many of a union's benefits aren't easily quantified into economic terms (family stability? job security? increased civic stability? Is there an advantage to someone holding just one good-paying job, rather than three poor ones? etc.). And, of course, Monopsony isn't taken seriously.
Lastly, some people have wondered--not stupidly--why it is that Wal-Mart gets singled out for practices that are endemic in today's corporate world. Kathy G has the goods:
Why Wal-Mart? For one thing, Wal-Mart is huge. It is America's, and the world's, biggest company (in terms of revenues), and also America's, and the world's, largest private sector employer. Using the figure listed here on Walmart's 2007 revenues, and the figures for the U.S. GDP in 2007 listed here and here (which all give slightly different estimates for the GDP), I calculate that Wal-Mart's revenues are equal to approximately 2.7% of the gross domestic product of the United States.
To get a sense of what that means, consider, as Nelson Lichtenstein points out this invaluable book, that at the height of its power back in the 1950s, General Motors, then America's largest corporation, was responsible for about 2% of the GDP. And just as General Motors, along with the other Big Three auto-makers, set the standard for one model of employment -- the so-called "Treaty of Detroit," which secured for workers collective bargaining rights, a middle-class wage, and extensive health, unemployment, pension, and paid leave benefits -- well, Wal-Mart has pioneered a rather different paradigm for labor relations.
Its ginormous size makes it not merely a market-taker, but a market-maker -- a monopsony, if you will. It has the power to set standards, and it does; where Wal-Mart leads, other employers, and particularly employers in retail and other low-wage sectors, follow. And Wal-Mart is leading the way toward some very nasty places indeed.
Moving on. Orson Scott Card, a sci-fi writer responsible for all those Ender books, is also a wingnut. More than just an ordinary wingnut he's a Mormon wingnut, which means he does't much care for the gays or the evolution. The lack of empirical grounding in his views on one of the main domains of science--biology--I find rather amusing in a science-fiction writer, but that is neither herenor there.
I've always enjoyed his books, and I still do, but it's hard to respect him as much as I once did, reading Ender's Game under my covers, over and over again. He fell from grace three or four years back, for me, when I discovered his wingnutitude, but I thought these insights (via Dispatches from the Culture War) merited further scorn. Card writes:
The first and greatest threat from court decisions in California and Massachusetts, giving legal recognition to "gay marriage," is that it marks the end of democracy in America.
Oy vey. There's more here if you can stomach it.
All of this, via Ezra Klein, by the way, but let me reiterate:
(1) Obama says this:
"and so the only way they figure they're going to win this election is if they make you scared of me. So what they're saying is, 'Well, we know we're not very good but you can't risk electing Obama. You know, he's new, he's... doesn't look like the other presidents on the currency, you know, he's got a, he's got a funny name.'"
(2) McCain camp freaks out, talks about race cards and whatnot.
(3) Meanwhile, McCain camp releases this idiotic ad.
Ah, I love the smell of stupidity in the morning.
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