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From: Portside Moderator [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 10:44 PM
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Subject: [SPAM] Wisconsin Continues Right-Wing Structural Reforms That Have
Transformed the United States
Wisconsin Continues Right-Wing Structural Reforms That Have Transformed the
United States
Scott Walker, Reagan's self-appointed heir
The real story of Wisconsin is the Republican
right's long war to refashion American society
without unions
By Mark Weisbrot
Guardian (UK)
March 10, 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/mar/10/wisconsin-us-
unions
With the latest turn of events in Wisconsin, Republican
state senators have circumvented the need for a quorum vote
on Scott Walker's budget bill by leaving out the fiscal
clauses and passing the new laws curbing collective
bargaining rights for state and public employees. This
dubious tactical maneuver strips away the pretense that
Walker and his GOP allies have hitherto maintained that the legislative
package was necessary to close the state's budget deficit: Walker's
objective is, as protesters in Madison have argued all along, to break the
last vestige of organized labor strength in the U.S. - the power of public
sector workers to organize and negotiate collectively. Stated or not,
Walker's ambition is to complete what Ronald Reagan began 30 years ago.
But the legislative chicanery in Madison's Capitol smacks of desperation. It
may yet prove that the Right in the U.S. has overreached in its attack on
public sector unions, provoking the left/liberal base of the Democratic
party, a popular uprising in Wisconsin and elsewhere, and a backlash among
the public. The latest Rasmussen poll shows Wisconsin voters disapproving of
Governor Scott Walker by a margin of 57 to 43 percent, with 48 percent
saying they "strongly disapprove." But there are also some positive lessons
that American progressives and liberals could learn from the Right's
political strategy.
It is not just that these right-wing governors like Scott Walker and John
Kasich (Ohio) and other Republican leaders are willing to take risks and
fight for what they want. It is also that they fight for structural reforms
-- reforms that change the political terrain so that it will be more
favorable for the next battle and for the "long war" to which they are
committed.
Undermining and destroying collective bargaining rights is
one of the most important structural reforms that any right- wing government
in a developed country can win. And it is not just because, as has been
widely noted, unions contribute money to the campaigns of Democratic
candidates. It is much deeper than that. Organized labor is relatively weak
now, but for more than a century it has been the most important force for
positive economic reforms in the United States, from the eight-hour work
day, to health insurance and Medicare [PDF], social security, pensions and
minimum wages. The labor slogan, "Unions: the folks who brought you the
weekend," is a true but vastly understated historical reality in America.
Ronald Reagan understood this very clearly when he fired
12,000 air traffic controllers soon after taking office in
1981 to break their strike and begin a new era of labor suppression in which
private sector workers all but lost their rights to organize unions. His
agenda was so radical that it scared many conservatives - which was one
reason he lost the 1976 Republican nomination. Even after winning the
presidency in 1980, much of the business class was not convinced that it was
possible to revert to 19th century labor relations - until Reagan did it.
Unions were 20 percent of the private sector labor force when Reagan was
elected; they are 6.9 percent today.
Crushing organized labor was essential to a number of
Reagan's other historic achievements, including launching
the most massive upward redistribution of income and wealth
in U.S. history. During the 25 years after he took office,
the after-tax real (inflation adjusted) income of the
richest one percent would more than triple, while the
average American's income would barely grow at all. But
there was so much more that he accomplished in the world of right-wing
ideas, foreign policy, tax reform, and elsewhere. Without much of a mandate
from the voters, Reagan was nonetheless a president that transformed the
world, perhaps more than any single person in the second half of the 20th
century. Unfortunately for the world, the changes that he led made most
people worse off - and in places like Central America, tens of thousands
were killed [PDF] by the dictators, death-squad governments, and "freedom
fighters" that he championed.
Contrast the leadership of Reagan and even today's far less skilled
Republicans to their counterparts on the other side. Bill Clinton also
fought for structural reforms. His top legislative priority during his first
year in office was fighting for NAFTA, which helped to further undermine
labor in the United States. By creating the World Trade Organization and
implementing welfare reform and financial de-regulation, Clinton continued
the right-wing structural changes of the Reagan era - so much that there
wasn't that much left for George W. Bush to do when he took office. Bush
tried to go after Social Security, but was defeated. (Clinton had a very
similar plan for partial privatization and cuts to Social Security, but
backed off under political
pressure.)
Now we come to President Obama, who really did have a
mandate for change as the majority of the electorate finally rebelled
against nearly four decades of right-wing reforms and the pain and anxiety
caused by the Great Recession. One structural reform that Obama had promised
in his campaign to support was the Employee Free Choice Act, which would
have gone a long way toward restoring the collective bargaining rights that
Reagan had destroyed. President Obama quickly backed off from this promise.
On health care, Obama also backed off from his pledge to support a public
option - which was not so much a structural reform as a possible opening to
the structural health care reform that this country needs. Real health care
reform would be a vital progressive structural change, not least because it
would eliminate the long-term deficit problem in the United States and
thereby remove the main pillar of the right-wing conservative/liberal budget
agenda.
The list could go on, but my point is not to attack Obama.
He is simply representative of Democratic political
leadership after nearly four decades of rightward drift
helped along by conservative structural reforms. This is something that the
pundits get wrong every day: it is not because this is an inherently
conservative country that liberal leadership is so weak. Although polling
results fluctuate widely with media coverage and the framing of the polling
questions, for decades there have been polls showing majorities in favor of
real (Medicare for all) health care reform, deep cuts in military spending,
an end to U.S. military intervention abroad, increased taxes for the rich,
government spending to increase employment (as needed now), and most of the
progressive agenda.
The problem is not in the people but in the corridors of
power, in the media and the Congress and the many
institutions - including liberal ones - that have been moved rightward by
strategic efforts over the last 40 years. That is why progressives find
themselves fighting defensive battles, as in Wisconsin - while the right,
which has neither the presidency nor the Senate - plays offense. It will
take some time to get to the point where progressive structural reforms are
on the agenda.
But that time will come, and the mass uprisings in support
of collective bargaining are a great and inspiring start
where new leadership and organizing will emerge - Inshallah (God willing) -
as they say in Egypt.
[Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research, in Washington, D.C. He is also president of Just Foreign Policy,
he also co-writer of Oliver Stone's documentary South of the Border.]
Center for Economic and Policy Research
1611 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20009
Phone: (202) 293-5380, Fax: (202) 588-1356
http://www.cepr.net/
The Center for Economic and Policy Research is an
independent, nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote
democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that
affect people's lives. CEPR's Advisory Board includes Nobel Laureate
economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; Janet Gornick, Professor at the
CUNY Graduate Center and Director of the Luxembourg Income Study; and
Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University.
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