Support the Employee Free Choice Act
In the last issue of The Oberlin Review, we were treated to an op-ed piece by Cara Lawler (of the OC Republicans) and Prof. Tim Hall (the Ethics Professor). They argued that an Obama victory spells: "a permanent loss of prosperity and freedom."
The points go like this.
Obama supports:
(1) "Increases in business and capital gains taxes," (Lawler and Hall don't mention that the US currently has one of the lowest effective corporate tax rates in the world)
(2) "A permanent, partially nationalized banking industry," (OMGZ NO!!!! BUT EVERYTHING HAS BEEN GOING SO WELL!!!!)
(3) "An expensive and inefficient government health care system." (And God knows that what we have now isn't more expensive than just about any other health care system in the world. It's also known world-wide for its efficiency)
(4) "The elimination of secret balloting in union elections." (aka the Employee Free Choice Act. Lawler and Hall claim to be worried about Union intimidation. I couldn't agree more; all those poor giant corporations with their massive anti-unionization machines really need our help to keep unions out of their stores. It's not like you get fired just for talking about organizing these days.)
(5) "a return of the so-called 'fairness doctrine.'" (OH NOZ!)
It's pretty scary shit. Of course, my responses are mostly snarky and without substance, so let me direct your attention to Fred Bernard's article in this week's The Oberlin Grape (no link):
ere’s what just happened: unregulated investment in subprime mortgages resulted in the greatest American financial crisis since the Great Depression, dragging the Eastern, Middle Eastern, and Latin American economies down into the muck with it in a global domino effect that, if it could be rendered visibly, would look like a portent of the Biblical Apocalypse. Since this is American politics, a political sacrifice was demanded, and Alan Greenspan (he’ll do, certainly) was duly compelled under the torture of public humiliation to admit that he had been wrong about self-regulating markets all along. Other economic authorities, from Martin Wolf of The Financial Times to Joseph Ackerman of the Deutsche bank have stood over the body of neoliberalism and proclaimed it very dead. Both officially and culturally, the curtain appears to have closed on the era of Friedmanite libertarianism.
Still, there are holdouts. The Oberlin Review published an op-ed from student Cara Lawler and associate professor Timothy Hall prior to the election that promised that Obama’s economic regulations “would bring a permanent loss of prosperity and freedom” and were “the most powerful argument for McCain.” It’s a strikingly doctrinaire piece of libertarianism, written by a stubborn vanguard beholden to theory and dismissive of the reality of “actually existing” libertarianism that has wrought catastrophe in every corner of the globe. In other words: when McCain is path to freedom and Obama is the relative despot, it might be time to put the book down.
The most prominent flaw in libertarianism, besides its implicit hostility towards democracy, is its assumption that the government and private industry are two insolvent, naturally hostile camps, rather than different manifestations of private power. The crude assumption is immediately apparent in Hall and Lawler’s assertion that “the government has strong-armed its way into partial ownership of the nation's largest banks.” In fact, the government was invited- indeed extorted- to “nationalize” the banks by the banks themselves to, which at this point means little more than giving the banks billions of dollars with no string attached. This is blackmail and collusion, not Soviet planning.
The authors that an Obama victory will result in a “partially nationalized banking industry.” To whatever extent the banks are nationalized under Obama, providing some public control is better than the current Republican “nationalization” plan that does little more than guarantee the financial sector money every time their rapacious greed screws everything else up. Actual nationalization might provide accountability; the Republican plan rewards failure. Which is more conducive to free market ideology?
“Obama's promised subsidies for companies that do not relocate abroad are tariffs in all but name.” Correction: tariffs might actually mean something; subsidies for good corporate behavior, a la Al Gore’s proposal to offer tax breaks for companies with lower carbon emissions, are the crumbs of a solution our government offers us instead. Corporations are going to stop relocating to poor countries with autocratic governments and an oppressed labor force because Obama’s going to bribe them with taxpayer money? Hall and Lawler need not worry: jobs and capital will continue to bleed from America despite Obama’s repressive attempts to bribe them.
“It is introductory economics that free trade benefits both national partners.” It is basic common sense, however, that indicates that it doesn’t. Thousands of Indian farmers have committed suicide over the past few years, having lost their farms to foreign competition; Afghan farmers turn to opium production because of the imported grain dumped on their market, driving them into the grip of their nation’s warlords; and Jamaican agriculture economy has been wiped out, while foreigners imported into Jamaica work in the industrial economy that was offered to Jamaica as a replacement. A walk through the Indian countryside- or for that matter, the industrial exoskeleton of the American Midwest- will tell you how beneficial free trade has been, not “introductory economics.” This reflexive appeal to doctrine is surprisingly audacious given that it was the same “introductory economics” that got Alan Greenspan eaten alive a few weeks ago.
The authors then castigate Obama for wanting to implement a civilized health care system in the US, which they claim will be “expensive and inefficient.” For all its inefficiencies, a government health care system would be a better provider of health care that a system has a profit-incentive in aggressively refusing to treat many of its customers. If energy privatization in California and England, water privatization in Latin America, and education privatization in Africa have proven anything to us, besides the appalling incompetence of their planners, is that governments are better providers of essentials than are private entities. The American health care system, a model of inefficiency and red tape that would disgrace any government, is further testament to that.
Finally, the authors warn of two assaults Obama would levy against free speech: “the elimination of secret balloting in union elections” and “a return of the so-called ‘fairness doctrine,’” the federal law that requires that broadcasters give “equal time” to different opinions on major issues. McCain would militarize American society to an extent unprecedented in American society, and the most totalitarian thing the Democrats will do is revise some broadcast regulation? As for the elimination of secret balloting, the issue at hand is not the sacred American right to the secret ballot: it’s whether or not employers can use the union ballot process to obstruct labor activity. Unless, of course, we are to believe that Wal-Mart and other companies opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act are suddenly concerned about their employees’ privacy.
Still, I agree with libertarians on one point: people generally act on their own self-interest. When Americans elected Barack Obama president, they didn’t do it so that they could cheer the precise, beautifully Newtonian alignments of an unencumbered market ran, for their own good, by their betters. They did it for themselves.
Knock, motherfuckin' knock.
Can I just point out how awesome it is that Oberlin has two newspapers (not to mention about 8,000 other publications). As far as diversity of media outlets go, Oberlin is better than most major metropolitan areas.
Lastly, the following clip is my senator, Amy Klobuchar, arguing for The Employee Free Choice Act. She's not the best speaker, but her heart's in the right place. I was worried that she was just another suit, and actually considered supporting the crazy-liberal candidate over her in the 2006 election.
Part of that was my natural dislike of DAs and the fact that she--like all politicians--is a litte crazy. But, whatever, she's doing pretty good, and I'll be happy to vote for her in 2012. Anyway, here's the clip:
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