A Bastion of Structural Discrimination - Labor Unions?

Who exactly do unions protect?  According to Morgan O. Reynolds, the answer is not minorities.

"Despite considerable rhetoric to the contrary, unions have blocked the economic advance of blacks, women, and other minorities. That is because another of their functions, once they have raised wages above competitive levels, is to ration the jobs that remain. The union can discriminate on the basis of blood relationships or skin color rather than auctioning off (openly selling) the valuable jobs to the highest-bidding applicants." (You can read the rest of the post here: Labor Unions)

Reynolds contends that because unions are not subject to federal taxation and antitrust laws, they are not obligated to abstain from discrimination (as corporations are).  Essentially, the unions are wholly democratic structures, meaning that the prejudices of the majority can oppress those subjected to that bias.  As there is no protection for women, blacks or other minorities within a union, they cannot demand fair hiring and advancement practices.  Reynolds even cites union opposition by Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois, two early civil rights leaders with very different ideas on how to enhance the standing of African Americans in society.

On the issues of unions, I am still conflicted.  There is no question that the organizations were essential in freeing workers from ungodly conditions in the early part of the 20th century.  And I certainly maintain that Scott Walker's actions in Wisconsin are nothing more than a political stunt aimed at garnering political support and paying back some of his big-money backers.  But I think Reynolds raises a point that must be considered as the landscape of organized labor is drastically changing under current economic conditions.

Also, just a bit more on Morgan O. Reynolds: he was Chief Economist at the US Department of Labor under G.W. Bush, and gained some national attention in 2005 as a founding member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a group which contends that 9/11 was an inside job and that 747s never actually flew into the World Trade Towers.  Take that for what it is worth.  Props to Abraham Sangha at The Institute for linking this Library of Economics and Liberty post.

Friday Pick of the Week

This week's pick is courtesy of music connoisseur Joshua Wooden.  He passed along an email with the following link to this music video (yes, they still make them) of the song "Garden" by Sean Hayes.  A folk singer in the San Francisco scene, Hayes has genre-fitting selections with titles like "Rattlesnake Charm" and "No No Guantanamo."  You can find some more samples of his music here.  Enjoy.

Supply and Demand (and Ecstasy)

One quarter of the world's prison population resides in US prisons.  Comparatively, 3% of the world's population lives in the US.  I think we are doing something wrong.  The prison population began expanding rapidly in the 1980s as a repercussion of President Reagan's War on Drugs.  Under the new policy, drug possession and trafficking took on severe penalties, leading to a boon in the prison population (not to mention the prison building and private prison industries).  The implications are particularly stark for the African-American population, where one in four black men will serve time during his third decade.

Much work on drug addiction and policy has been done in the realm of behavioral economics.  Behavioral Economics is a trans-disciplinary field, combining concepts from B.F. Skinner's Behavioral Psychology and Consumer Demand theory in microeconomics (For an introduction to Behavioral Economics, I highly suggest Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational. It is a quick read, and it does a great job of presenting the science in a clear format.)  If protecting a population from the dangers of illegal drug use is our objective, then there are two sides that must be controlled - supply reduction strategies and demand reduction strategies.

From the beginning of the war on drugs, the US has focused a disproportionate amount of resources to supply reduction strategies.  We have flexed our foreign muscle to force countries into coca, reefer and opium eradication programs while neglecting the US demand for drugs.  Our foreign policy on drugs has resembled the imperialistic cowboy style that demands other countries to get in line.  However, we have neglected the cause of elastic demand for street drugs in the US - addiction.  The RAND Corporation 1995 table below shows US expenditures on drug policy.

The strategy has served to inflate street drug prices in the US as supply decreases and demand remains constant.  As risk increases, so to does price.  For reference, you can review recent Mexican history to understand the climate shaped by our drug policy.  Meanwhile, un-addicted but bored middle class white kids are steering clear of the heavy penalties associated with cocaine and heroine, choosing instead gray-market "herbal supplements" or new designer chemical substances they can get on the internet, or crystal meth they can make at home.  

Friday Pick of the Week

With Mardi Gras just around the corner, what better way to head into the weekend than under the soulful sounds of the The Radiators.  This Bob Dylan cover of "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" is from a live 2005 set played at New Orleans' famous Tipitina's.  May your weekend be filled with Moon Pies.

Fiscal Conservatism?

In the firestorm that has surrounded government budget debates on the state and federal level, folks from all sides are chiming in.  Tea Party-supported "fiscal conservatives" have entered the scene on a mission.  I am a firm believer in fiscal discipline, but much of the controversy has been over what amounts to politics as usual. As I've discussed in recent posts, states everywhere are slashing programs that are social investments - research, public media, education and healthcare. Scott Walker is using the budget crisis in Wisconsin to strip state employees of collective bargaining rights, describing their benefits as luxurious and their salaries as disproportionate to the private sector (by the way, 60% of public employees have college degrees versus 20% of non-government workers).  The problem with his argument is that stripping collective bargaining has nothing to do with the current budget.  It is nothing more than manipulating a current crisis to change the rules of the game.

The federal government is following suit, as new Republicans are vying to make good on pledges of cutting $100 billion from the 2010 budget.  Refusing to touch the sacred cows of defense and Medicare (which along with Social Security account for 88% of the federal budget), they take aim at "discretionary spending," namely things that people who vote for Democrats use.  All of this is done in the name of "fiscal conservatism," but as blogger Jim Wallis of God's Politics points out, what is being sold as fiscal conservatism is simply politics as usual:
This is not fiscal conservatism. It's just politics.

Healthcare and Immigration

It looks like Alabama is not the only one making short-sighted decisions regarding the health of children.  Arizona lawmakers, looking to one-up the controversial bill they passed in 2010 targeting illegal immigrants, have brought to the floor an omnibus immigration bill with repercussions reaching deep into the unknown.  The bill extends to healthcare, with stiff penalties aimed at healthcare providers and hospitals that would dare treat Hispanics without demanding to see their documentation.  The bill will certainly draw vocal support from fiscal conservatives and anti-immigration proponents, though it has little basis in reality.


The Arizona Republic highlights the bill's shortcomings in an article by Mary K. Reinhart and Ken Alltucker: "Tucson neonatologist Carlos Flores said the legislative proposals, including co-payments for prenatal care and no-show fees, show a "lack of understanding" about the state's health-care network. Nearly half of Flores' patients are on AHCCCS, and he said barriers to prenatal care and other health services would cost taxpayers more in the long run."


As seems to be more and more common in the current political climate, when financial times get tough, people lose their minds.  Conservative commentators continually discuss the federal budget in light of the way a middle class family would run their home - "When things get tight, you've got to make cuts."  However, the cuts they are willing to make are chosen in light of two, four or six-year election cycles, with little perspective for the future.  "We can't leave our children with any more debt!" is the cry.  But stripping programs that are innately long term investments - such as funding for the healthcare of children and scientific research - is like breaking into the kids' college accounts so that you can maintain one's current standard of living.  The cuts being demanded by Tea Partiers and libertarians might make the budget look more solvent now, but they will cost future generations.

Alabama's Choices

The Decatur Daily published an editorial on Alabama's coming legislative session, one in which heavy budget cuts are anticipated, with lawmakers taking particular aim at programs benefiting children.  Education and healthcare are the most prominent targets.  The editorial raises the question: how much more can the budget be cut?  Alabama, as of 2006, has the lowest per capita taxes in the country, with the poor bearing a high portion of the burden.  Why do we emphasize low taxes at the cost of the future of our state?  Is it because the policy makers know that their children will be well educated in private or suburban schools, with gracious health insurance plans to protect them as they mature into the roles their parents now hold?  Hits to rural and urban school systems and to Medicaid and the SCHIP program serve to ensure that kids depending on those programs will not be competing for power positions.

I completely understand populist resistance to taxes, but what is amazing is how the wealthy can so easily sell the middle class on a tax structure that blatantly benefits high-income earners.  Perhaps the promise of the American Dream is sufficient to convince blue collar social conservatives that they need to resist tax reform so that once they arrive they can reap the benefits.  The sad part of that promise is that it is a lie.  The income gap between the wealthiest Americans and the middle class has grown drastically over the past 25 years, and trends show no signs of relenting.  Why do we refuse to demand a political system that promotes justice?

Props to Clark Powell for passing along this link: The New Normal