This week is one of those times where the topic got away from me and the result was not what I expected. My initial plan was to do four or five segments on topics related to the early union movement. Maybe focus on five people or five notable strikes and then pivot to how they relate to our age. I like the five segment format as it pleases my sense of balance, so I thought five ten minute bits on these topics would work.
Then I started putting together the first segment and things got away from me. I quickly discovered that my own knowledge of the material was inadequate. There were things I had either forgotten or never learned. It was also clear that the topics I picked were bigger than what I can cover in ten minutes. This week’s show is a good example of what happens when you bite off more than you can chew.
Still, I like the topic and I’m going to come back to it. I also like the fact that much of this is forbidden knowledge. The union movement really is a great example of how the usual suspects hose the Left just like they hose the Right. The modern union movement is thoroughly incorporated into cosmopolitan globalism. When was the last time a modern Progressive gave a speech in favor of labor?
The union movement is also a great topic for dissidents, because it breaks that old conditioning most of us labor under, having come out of conservatism. If you were a libertarian or any sort of conservative, you were tuned to hate unions. That sense is still with us, but there is a lot dissidents can learn from the union movement. We face many of the same problems faced by labor a century ago.
The union movement is also a great way to begin thinking about the fact that not all things should be subject to market forces. There are things that are morally right because we believe them to be right on their face. Whether or not they hold up in the marketplace is immaterial. The treatment of our fellow citizens in the workplace is one of those things that should never be left to the marketplace.
This week I have the usual variety of items in the now standard format. Spreaker has the full show. I am up on Google Play now, so the Android commies can take me along when out disrespecting the country. I am on iTunes, which means the Apple Nazis can listen to me on their Hitler phones. The anarchists can catch me on iHeart Radio. YouTube also has the full podcast. Of course, there is a download link below.
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This Week’s Show
Contents
- 00:00: Opening
- 05:00: Molly Maguires (Link) (Link)
- 25:00: Saboteurs & Provocateurs (Link) (Link)
- 45:00: Eugene V Debs (Link) (Link)
- 55:00: Closing
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Full Show On Spreaker
Full Show On YouTube
https://youtu.be/voLXcZnbGbM
My introduction to the Molly Maguires came via the Sherlock Holmes novel, “The Valley of Fear.” About half the novel is occupied by a thinly-disguised account of the group (re-christened “The Scowrers”) and their betrayal by an undercover Pinkerton detective. Conan Doyle does a great job of portraying the menace beneath the surface of a Pennsylvania coal-mining town. The union boss is a monster, and the Pinkerton man the hero, but the Irish miners and their cause are dealt with sympathetically. The author may have accepted a knighthood from a British monarch, but in some ways he was just another “Artie Doyle” at heart.
Sorry to get into this thread so late, but I had to say this was a great topic, Z-man. The approach was ingenious: you have a good eye for drawing parallels from history to our present predicament.
You made a comment early in the podcast that resonated with me: That the transition period in the late 19th-early 20th centuries was largely overlooked in your schooling. I had the same experience. I eventually concluded that our generation’s view of history and historical forces were dominated (and distorted) by the World War II-Cold War perspective, which divided everything into a bilateral, us-against-them polarity. From such a perspecitve, it’s difficult to appreciate other historical epochs, when many different forces with varying motivations were at play simultaneously.
What’s important to realize now is that the bi-lateral world was a momentary blip in history, which has been expired for a generation. Those older epochs like the pre-WW1 period are now more relevant to our present-day experiences than the post-WW2 world. The insights to be drawn from those neglected times are only just beginning to be mined, and have a freshness about them that can truly awaken an otherwise slumbering mind.
having meandered from left populism, Catholic right, libertarianism, Catholic left-liberalism, and back into dissident Catholic trad and (eth)nationalist thinking… been all over the place really. and save the typical teenage phase you get after reading Ayn Rand a little, guess one could say me and most people my early millennial age have come to value labor and union. specially since even the “professional” classes under the managers have become screwed, by “office space” style bosses; as we have entered the spent job marketplace with the college debt on our backs, and our stupidified lifestyles, we are stuck between trying to find a job with a/c and a job without. thus there’s been a slight comeback of the popularity of labor and unions, or at least an arrested decline, even if of course the whole global establishment (including bernie and aoc) sells them out, in this brave new millennium.
however, my defense is with a huge caveat about the unions having to be “supervised”, meaning kept in check to some degree, by government and lesser degree business (specifically certain producers, those who run the economy producing local wealth yet also employ many locals giving it back, as opposed to just marketers of consumption or elitist exploiters). it’s how it works in the soft-fascist systems in Mitteleuropa and Scandinavia, heirs of course of the NatSoc system that pretty much integrated labor in one big union (not dissimilar to the current Chinese fascists, btw) and worked and the “cruises for the masses” and all that… until the leadership wasted the unionmembers’ money, of course. and that is the point i want to make, the leadership of unions have to be people that work with business to the degree that unions have seats in large company boards, there’s two weeks paid vacation for all families, Good Friday as public holiday, and at least a barebones health coverage for all citizens (perhaps encouraging family formation, for example if you are single and childless after 40 you must get to monastery if you want help)… but are also not allowed to support secularist corporate centerleftists for the sake of power, while still doing annoying strikes against “evil cisgendered natsees and climate denialists” and pretending to care, as happens in the western world now.
speaking of France, seems the Mediterranean countries eventually all had their unions fall to their somewhat genetically peculiar clan-based mafia systems of power; just see the sorry bureaucratic states of Spain, Greece, Italy, and their former colonies… not Ireland though, at least not anymore, for it has turned Gaelic secularist for the money for a few decades, and perhaps ready to undo the advance of its particular “Catholic republic” values (now upheld by Hungary and Poland) by naturally going pagan multicultiglobalist with Varadkar and the EU. perhaps this shows the left-led decay happens then also in the North Sea peoples and others though, just slower and/or in a different way due to their peculiar characteristics: see the state of the British working class, the betrayal by the Danish socialists by not enforcing borders as strongly as they should, and Greta Thunberg leading her fellow Swede schoolchildren into demographical oblivion, while in Norway every schoolchild is taught the sins of quisling Breivik… at any rate, here’s hoping the best for the Croatian lefty who won over the hot but probably crooked earlier female center-right president; it is the Balkans though, and he does seem a sellout to the EU anyhow (as are all South Slavs bar the Russophile Serbs and Macedonians after their genocides left them weak – food for thought about perhaps ethnonationalism gone wrong). oh and of course, the labor movement in the US also went crooked, although it definitely had more to do with the ethnics taking it over as they arrived – but then again, John Dewey created the free schools to be staffed with Negro labor so WASP abolitionists felt good about themselves, as well as giving jobs to suffragettes and Jews… so again, North Sea peoples can fall in the trap too, while perhaps now Poles and Magyars show the way heh…
so you see the key is, of course, administering the gov-corp-union-family-individual relationships as best as you monoethnically can, knowing that there will be years of want, and strategic alliances with foreign tribes; but of course the people who work hardest, and are your own faith and blood, are precisely those to be rewarded in times of want, to keep the machinery of society going. as opposed to depending on elites and/or foreign groups and/or return to tribal egalitarian upheaval.
in short, yes to based fascist unions. for starters, the return of the post-high school year(s) of apprentice labor/service should come back, would stiffen up the male youth and make the female youth decent. would also discourage the college-masters money-milking machine, save for stem jobs who need higher ed…
Hoffer was successful because the membership liked him. Unfortunately he needed muscle to fight big business and enlisted the mafia for that help.
Of course the mafia wanted to take over the union. Hoffa protested and they killed him. The unions remained successful because the mafia was good at what they did.
The government came riding to the rescue with RICO to help out their big business buddies and taking out their competition was an added bonus 🙂
The fear still remains with government / big business. That’s why we have disarmament and deconstruction of the constitution. Violence is very effective and it stays fresh in people’s memories.
Disclaimer : To any of our government friends listening in, I do not nor have I ever condoned or associated in any sort of violence against government, private entity or person. My comments are only for historical reference.
One of Z’s best persistent themes shines throughout this pod – the legacy of past dissident movements is a must-read for Us.
We’re currently deconstructing the fake history and tainted mythos of Second Founding America. Revolutions that only deconstruct eventually face the negative identity problem. We have to construct a new mythos with new heroes, new “journeys” and struggles. We have to reinterpret history, informed by our perspectives.
Our Guys fall prey to black-pilling in part because we fail to understand that these kinds of struggles have in fact been won against long odds in the past. Our heroes have been deconstructed, revised or memory-holed.
The history of groups like the labor dissidents is where heroes can be found and where Our wins can be celebrated. The patriots of Dissident America should look to lionize past dissidents instead of hobbling their souls with Lincoln, MLK and Reagan-worship. We’re not law-abiding Citizens of Empire anymore. We’re outlaws of a sort, noble outlaws, but outlaws nonetheless.
Z, I hope your book-length writing hammers hard on this theme as well as the lessons we can learn from post-Gilded Age dissidents and outlaws like the biker gangs and Soviet dissenters. Great stuff.
Irish Secret Societies was a great thing to learn about listening to your podcast. We will need to resort to such measures of unity. The similarities of our time to a pre-war period was interesting to think of as well.
The unknown factor is the societal shift and the difference of a technological economy vs an industrial and service one. By that I mean manufactured indifference/propaganda from technology about European identity or value paired with the increased surveillance of an all encompassing internet world.
I think the biggest question our movement or aligned interests face is what to do besides increasing awareness. I know Z that you have spoken of Casey’s group AIM before, and I feel that subconsciously led you to take interest in the Maggie Maguires. There are false actors like Punched Dick and we need vigilance. That said, awareness is not enough to have real world consequences, we need on the ground real world groups who can defend interests on a local level, in places where there are demographic and like-minded Americans, actual Americans (European Americans). When America breaks down it will be from the urban outward.
That is the next step for our movement. And it is the most dangerous one as the history of the industrial unions shows.
I’m glad new people are showing up here and that is why about every post I bring up the need to be building Communities of dissidents…I know it gets old to the old-timers here but a lot of young guys are just now finding out about what the dissident right is all about so I still see a need of advocating for us to be doing that…
Never gets old, Lineman.
How long have they been running “diversity is our strength” on a loop?
The mantras of our people need to ring out across the land. Beacons for awakened ears, antidotes to the mind poison raining down from the cloud.
We have two generations of lost boys on our heels that will need beacons to steel them against slippage and despair as they awaken.
Our elders may be suffering from broken communities and cultural decay, but at least most of them were able to form a family.
Family formation is a community function. Too many of the young lads today are not even getting a fair shake at coupling-up and building a home and family.
If we do not form communities that can channel those young men and guide them into the creation of their own posterity, we will have a massive problem – even inside our own ranks.
Its too late for me, but I pray that I can find my purpose in this essential endeavor such that young men ejecting from clown world will not burn in or land alone, but will instead plant their boots gently upon fertile soil surrounded by their future kin.
I think the attitude toward unions and markets is one of the clear dividing lines between Civnats/Conservative Inc. and the dissident right.
Also interesting is that white working class of that era was easily divided along ethnic lines. Those lines don’t exist so much today, and a consciously white party wouldn’t be so easily divided. Which is why I wonder if an entryism approach to the Republican Party might not be useful. Operating under a “trad American” label, so to speak. Ok, just noodling.
Press F for Neil Peart
Comparing 19th Century Immigrants to Slaves is a bit much. And that’s especially true of the Irish. Nobody asked you to come to the USA, buddy. And every Irishman was free to leave anytime he wished and go back home. Not only that but the Irish could speak English and the Germans, Italians, Poles, etc. couldn’t. But who CONSTANTLY whines about being discriminated? Oh, its the Irish. BTW, most of the coal miners in Pennsylvania were Welsh and poor whites from Appalachia.
But that applies to all the immigrants. I remember reading “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair and thinking, y’know if working in meat packing plant is so bad, why didn’t the Latvian family just to back to Latvia? Or move someplace else in the USA? Its not like they had to live in Chicago and pack meat.
Tell us about the libertarian paradise you live in. I’m really quite fascinated.
I’m talking about History. I don’t know what you’re talking about.
“The Jungle” is an excellent book. I think it is still relevant today and as you said, if America is so bad, why don’t these people who hate it just leave. I understand Barbra Streisand, and Whoopi Goldberg still haven’t moved to Canada so does it mean they’ve accepted Trump as their president after all?
The Irish whine about being discriminated against? In what fantasy are you living in. Having pride and a sense of identity is not whining.
So You agree the Irish have always been white, and have never talked about “No Irishmen need to apply signs”. Got it.
We can’t really bring back the halcyon days of good private sector union jobs. We paid a huge price to get it and worse the years didn’t last that long (roughly F.D.R. to maybe Carter) .Its not sustainable under any situation in which “capital” pardon the use of that term has any political power
The private sector union got gutted by the labor surplus, the entry of women in some trades, global trade and automation for the rest. Demand for labor won’t be back for decades if ever and demand for well paid labor, never.
This is even with closed borders anyway. In the long term you don’t need A.I. to wreck wages, You just need enough technology to lower fertility and cut wages. We’ve had that for 46 years or so already.
You can’t educate out either as even white collar jobs are subject to this remorseless push and when you’ve dealt out the low end (kiosks at stores) the good working (manufacturing automation) the middle (software replacing white collar) and most chunks of the well off what you get is an oligarchy. Well for a while
What sets this apart from other such occurrences historically is the global fertility decline . With everyone in the high 2 and 3 digit range on planet earth save a few religious kooks having low fertility its self correcting. No people, no problems.
. The general no return point for fertility is thought to be 1.6 per couple and basically everyone is now there except some White people in Europe (though below replacement they are at 1.8 which is recoverable) and in the US various religious sorts, Amish and FLDS and such.
Unless some means of distribution can be made to happen and it really shouldn’t be a welfare state, IMO a population decline is inevitable till social carrying capacity is met
For the US my guess is that this is between 60 and 100 million max.
Frankly that isn’t all bad, the ecology would benefit and by and large, less people and competition for resources makes life more pleasant for all.
Getting there though will be hellish as our growth obsessed elite will engage in innumerable destructive , short sighted and evil acts to preserve the system that keeps them on top. No one wants population decline and our societies Faustian. progress uber alles model goes into panic overdrive when it sees that most progress isn’t and often as not the only way forward backwards
there is only one lesson to be learned from the fall of unions. When the violence stopped, the unions failed. They were only successful because they were willing to shutdown that industry with violence. That was the only thing that the establishment respected.
The Cloud People we currently endure are a bigger bunch of wusses than the ones of a century ago.
Might I recommend the “Peaky Blinders” miniseries? An interesting work on family, heritage and roots, communities, violence, graft, power, unions, wealth and poverty. And see if you can figure out the only one that has no real roots, no loyalty to anyone, will lie strictly for money, not honor or revenge, and ultimately has no friends or family, only enemies that hate him. The people doing that show are hiding a big message in plain sight.
Dutch; I love Peaky Blinders” for a number of reasons. I had never thought of the taboo topic in plain sight.
I love watching movies about England that have actual English people in them. Having lived in England it makes me ache to see what has become of it.
The other lesson though was in regards to the abuse of the rail car company: all the normies of the day couldn’t be bothered to boycott the trains too.
I’m falling behind. I just finished last week’s podcast. Which at the end, kind of hilariously, you predicted nothing would happen in the Middle East. To be fair that took us all by surprise
Z
Excellent and much needed topic to discuss because it intersects with so many areas.
In my experience as a former liberal the R position on unions drove many working class whites to the D party for a life time. And actually today I don’t see any daylight between either parties on the issue of private sector unions. Public unions are a different animal.
With the average pay gap between CEO and median worker being over 205 to 1 with a number of companies having a gap of over 1,000 to 1 all the big donors love mass immigration because it lowers wages for heritage Americans.
The union topic and both legal and illegal immigration fit together hand in glove. Immigration hurts worker wages. We know that but in the current age the cloud people don’t care. We can/will become a Brazil and as long as they have gated communities with armed guards they don’t care. They can never be rich enough.
Interestingly enough back in the day saint Cesar Chavez brutally enforced a “wet line” which stopped illegals from crossing the border with whatever it took.
I have lived in areas where I heard the grandfathers of kids I knew talk about the murderous strike breakers protected by local and federal police who beat and murdered coal miners on strike.
The gist of this really comes back to community. The owners of the coal mines lived in the Northeast and had no contact with their workers. The masters of the universe today are in the same position. They don’t see workers as anything but replaceable parts at the cheapest price.
So private unions, immigration, and community are in some ways simply proxies for each other.
This was a great show today. I grew up with mixed feelings about the unions. My dad belonged to a union, but that union totally screwed him and stole a big part of his pension. The union did get my dad a fairly decent wage, though, and until I was a tween, my mom could stay home with the 4 kids.
Today, the only unions that are still around and still fairly powerful are the gov unions like teachers, cops and firefighters (and federal government) and of course can be pretty bad and pretty ugly. But my parents were also strongly republican, partially because the Democrats were the party of blacks and quite openly so in Lagos on the Delaware (Philly).
I really hope you revisit the topic again. The topic wasn’t that well covered in my schooling, but it’s an interesting part of our history and as you say, could teach us lessons that still apply today.
Tars – The Dems backed the Blacks in Philly? Was that after the 1964 Civil Rights Act? Interesting.
Yeah, big time. Not sure when it started though. By about 1980 it was complete and Philly elected its first black mayor. He was also the first guy to bomb a residential neighborhood from a helicopter, coincidentally (or not). Somewhat recently, the mayor proclaimed “the brothers and sisters are running this city,” I concur, especially the grift.
They tax everything you can drink except Milk and steal it all. They made it illegal for stores to use plexiglass because it interferes with black’s self-esteem. Stealing is more or less decriminalized.
Lived there at the end of that idiot’s regime. Lived in a pretty gentrified neighborhood in the city that was convenient to work and Boathouse Row. Crack epidemic got hold and things turned to a complete shit show.
It may have been Z who pointed out that after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Dems kicked Southern Whites to the curb in favor of Blacks. They obviously did the same in Philadelphia.
I read about how plexiglass windows hurt the self-esteem of Black patrons and was racist. So, the law did pass, after all? Increasingly, Blacks are given get-out-of-jail free cards because law and order is racist.
Although not everywhere, the fireboys have an amazing grift going, and 9-11 was a booster shot. Maybe a show on the taxpayer rape circus? So many entertaining acts to see.
In states like New York the scheme is very simple. Pension bases off last few years average compensation and in most places has no overtime cap. Worked in a small combination department and could always tell which of the paid guys was going to retire based on who got all the overtime thrown to them. Plus with 24s, had enough free time to run a side business. Now granted, in the old pre-SCBA days, guys in active departments like the FDNY often didn’t live long enough to collect much of their pension.
Pensions, in hindsight, may not be that great of an idea. All that money has to go somewhere.
“We’ll take the ni**gers and the chinks…but we don’t want the Irish”…Mel Brooks was a genius. A good read is the “Autobiography of Mother Jones”—one of those Irish born labor agitators. Read it along with several other good books in a class on American labor history. The rest are in storage in the attic, may try to get ambitious and dig them out. It is a worthwhile area of study—and the podcast was spot on, though a lot of ground to cover in an hour. Like the 20s, and understudied and oft caricatured corner of history.
Two spaces? What in the world is a “ni**ger”? New terminology or Jeopardy fail? Speaking of Jeopardy fails:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkfFyELXdoM
I
In a divorce court, the judge told the husband “I can’t grant you a divorce just because your wife is black.” To which the husband replied, “I didn’t say she was black, I said she was a nagger.”
“Filter friendly” is an unfortunate habit of modern times….and pinged out that comment whilst on the plane back from a place where a mean Tweet will land you at minimum a “helpful visit” from the local constable or perhaps jail. I was really on my best behavior the entire week.
Near me the little towns of New Straitsville and Shawnee were hotspots for the mine labor movement in the 1880s. Robinson’s Cave in New Straitsville is known as the secret birthplace of the United Mine Workers. The area was a major center for the Knights of Labor.
https://www.waymarking.com/waymarks/wm6AH9_Robinsons_Cave_09_64
Nearby in the town of Drakes was a battle between Pinkertons and miners that is largely lost to history.
Vizz, I’ll guarantee we’ve walked a lot of the same ground. I grew up within a half-hour’s drive of you. My adopted Scotch-Irish fam had some coal mining roots. One of my great uncles died of Black Lung. I’m glad my mindset and politics have re-centered in a place where I can honor those guys again and hopefully do their descendants some good.
My ranch has literal coal mining roots. Just over the hill was the Moxahala coal mines and one of the mines was a deep mine that ran under my property (among other places). There are two ventilation shafts on my property — iron pipes so long that if you banged on them with a rock or hammer it took a couple seconds for the echo to get back to you.
Are you still in the area?
SoCal for now, probably moving to one of the hinterlander areas of the West soon, as least for a “home base.”
As things presently stand, I’m looking to be a traveler and writer in Our Thing for the near-mid future. My day job allows for maximum mobility & I’m dox-resistant.
I still get back to SE OH on occasion – my family’s split between Cocoa-lumbus and the SE hills.
Exile: CA trapped for me also at present. I am currently on a trip to the South to visit former friends who are deplorables but I think my future outpost will be in the Rockies.
I have lived very close to where you were in SE Ohio. Our football team actually played 2 Ohio schools because we were so close to the border.
I have not been back there in a long time. When I lived there the boys were very tough and hard. I fear that now opioids have probably taken a big toll.
You guys should definitely take a serious look at the Bitterroot 😉
my ancestors were Appalachian coal miners . may grandfather was killed in a mine cave in. we were not Irish, we were there when Daniel Boone got there.
That whole scene was a good example of pure unadulterated greed…
Coal made (makes) the world go round. The world was a rougher place back then. We’re all greedy when it comes to keeping the lights on.
A retired hedgefund manager friend remarked: Look at a coal miner. He comes out of a coal mine covered with coal dust. He develops black lung disease. He makes $50, 60 thousand dollars a years. What do these financiers do? They shuffle pieces of paper.
I replied that whatever you want to say about robber barons, they built railroads and steel mills. What do these people do? Shuffle pieces of paper.
the going wage for coal mining now is right arround $35K. it has been faooing like a rock for over a decade.
It’s a much different job now. Mostly manning heavy machinery in strip mines. Not nearly has hazardous.
@ miforest – You might enjoy a book called “Albion’s Seed: Four British Folkways in America” written by David Hackett Fischer. There are some very interesting stories of how the Brits, Irish and Scots brought their culture into America and it has remained ever since.
Sod homes built in on the American prairie were not an American invention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albion%27s_Seed
Great post. For more discussion of the fight between labor and industry, Below are links to a podcast exploring the railroad strikes of the late 19th century. 4 hours of history rarely discussed these days. Cant help but make the comparison to the tech giants of today.
https://inwardempirepodcast.podomatic.com/enclosure/2016-06-30T15_03_05-07_00.mp3
https://inwardempirepodcast.podomatic.com/enclosure/2016-12-23T20_33_28-08_00.mp3
A friend once observed that slavery was doomed. He explained:
You own a car and take good care of it. When something goes wrong, you get it fixed. That’s what slaves were – valuable pieces of property.
An employee? Something goes wrong? (points to door) Employers in the 19th Century paid employees only enough to keep them alive.
I vaguely recall reading somewhere that a railroad company built a railroad in the South and employed Irish labor rather than slaves because the Irish cost less. The saying at the time was something like “If an Irishman dies, it’s an addition to the Kingdom of Heaven. If a slave dies, it’s $1200.”
The big issue in the 1896 presidential campaign was whether to retain a gold only monetary standard versus a reversion back to a bi-metal gold and silver standard. Farmers and debtors in general liked the bi-metal standard because there was more money in circulation and a little inflation which made it easier to pay off their debts. Bankers preferred a gold-only standard for the opposite reasons. The depression which began in 1893 continued and the elite was fine with a huge army of unemployed farmers who lost their farms adding to immigrants. William Jennings Bryan won the Democrat nomination due to his famous “Cross of Gold” speech at their convention supporting a bi-metal standard, though he lost the election.
This is exactly why the Brits gave up slavery early on. In fact, it was not a major factor in the expansion of the empire so their claim to have abolished it before the Americans did was just early virtue signaling. Why would anyone want slaves when you can turn an entire continent into indentured servitude? The Brits were masters of it for over 400-years.
Now American CEO’s, embedded with politicians, are doing exactly the same thing to you.
Back in my school days took a course on the antebellum South with George Frederickson–and one of the points he hammered on was the capital structure of the northern vs. southern economies. An extraordinary percentage of capital, measured against the whole was tied up in slaves. And no different than large corporations willingly disrupting themselves, there was about zero chance the southern aristocracy would do the same. Think Xerox and copiers…
I enjoyed the pod-cast, but was surprised that you limited the discussion to just 200-years in the past. In reality, the American corporate model was built on the British East India Company which in it’s infancy, put colonists in Jamestown under the same basic corporate structure you live with today.
Instead of governors, you now call them directors or CEOs. But the indentured servitude concept still exists as does the basic loss of all rights under the law once you cross the threshold of the company’s front door. As soon as you “badge in” you can wave good by to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The corporation’s HR department is now your overseer for next 8-10 hours.
The struggle between management and labor is identical to that of citizens and politicians under both the American and British systems. While the system of government in their respective governments may be different, the relationships are exactly the same. And why? Simple. No respect. None at all. And I mean in both directions. No respect for what each brings to the table for the mutual success of both parties, As the Zman stated, it’s rigged against you exactly as the EIC was ridged against native Indians.
To your comment about Ford, he only paid his workers enough so they could buy his cars. In the end, the benefit was still to and for himself. Bismark on the other hand, set in place a system that benefited not just workers and management, but all of German society.
Germans have had health care insurance, unemployment benefits, paid vacations for over 150-years. Why? Bismark recognized that sick workers are not productive workers. And when they work, they benefit themselves, the company and society. Sick workers quickly become unemployed workers who become a burden to society.
In Germany, labor and management recognize there’s a mutual benefit as each can not exist without the other. Managers respect their workers, workers respect the managers, both of whom are experts in their fields. American companies will lay you off if they have a bad quarter, then scramble to re-hire only to start the retraining (and quality) programs yet again. We have Kurtzarbeit (which was actually attempted briefly by California back in 2008) where the State subsidizes workers missed working hours so the company can reduce their hours, but keep highly skilled workers in their workforce
Even Bismark realized the benefits of paid vacations, and in many European countries, it’s required by law that every employee must take 2-weeks all at one time so they completely disengage from the stress of work. Generally, most Europeans are entitled to 30-days paid per year, with additional days as you get older.
I fear the very fabric of American society was woven with the threads of capitalism’s abuse at its worse, and you can thank the Brits for that. It would certainly explain much of why your two countries corporate and political elites are always in conflict with their workers and citizens. The “us vs. them” mentality is not going to end well.
On my list is a show on corporation and corporatism. It’s big subject, so narrowing the focus will be a challenge.
There is a very good eBook called “Gangs of America – The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy” written by Ted Nace which covers exactly what the titles describes. It’s well worth a read.
http://www.gangsofamerica.com/gangsofamerica.pdf
The other one you may enjoy is “India under British Rule from the Foundation of the East India Company” written by J. Talboys Wheeler. This is an absolute gem of a book as it was written in 1886 and is free from the revisionism and opinions of modern writers.
https://www.rarebooksocietyofindia.org/book_archive/196174216674_10154590844481675.pdf
Although many try to find a parallel between America’s decline and the fall of Rome, I think you will find the historical parallels between the formation of the EIC and the decline of the British empire into the 1920’s and up through 1947 are probably more relevant.
James Lafond covers this era in his Plantation America series. The interplay between the natives and the successive waves of imported “servants” is particularly interesting.
Though Bismarck had the advantage of a monochromatic society (in many ways). The US has always had the problem of absorption of an “Addams Family” variety of immigrants. Friedman’s observation of affording open borders or a welfare state, but not both, holds true.
more evidence that the GOP is hopelessly lost bunch of sellouts: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/09/gop-governors-try-to-fend-off-refugee-opposition/
The press today loves to think they are on the side of the strikers when they are really just the mouthpieces of the powerful. They love to say how their job is to hold the powerful accountable. It’s comical how corrupt they are.
Worse, I was reading a story a while ago about the FBI spying thing and all the leaks to the press and what REALLY stood out at me was the incestuous links between the government and the press. Married couples where one is in the press and the other in the government. Brother and sister-in-laws between the press and the government. Same thing with the lobbyists. Lobbyist married or otherwise related to people in both the press and the government. In DC, they all live together in the same neighborhoods and their kids play baseball together and they go to each other’s weddings and graduation parties. It’s just one big corrupt mess.
Today’s Pinkertons actually work for free. They are the sociopaths who get to act out their anti-social impulses while remaining the good guy in the minds of the people around them. There is almost always a woman in the front running her mouth and instigating the fighting which almost never affects them. Bunch of SIMPs on her side think that by bashing-the-fash that he’s gonna get some. Never quite works out that way though. Being a tool of the powerful, they have high powered lawyers willing to represent them for free.
When OWS was in Philly, I had an acquaintance who was involved in it. He was a much younger guy than me and had a crush on a girl who was involved in it and he ended up living in a tent at city hall. I actually visited him on a lunch hour a few times and each time he had phone numbers written in magic marker ink on his arms. Well, it turns out they were the numbers of lawyers that they could call should they get arrested. They were also getting law school professors. The best part about that is they make the students do the actual work. Not just for arrestees either. The movement got taken to court over various things and each time the left-wing machine and the universities were representing them for free.
What is “OWS” ?
Given my background and such, I see that and read: “Open-Water Swim.”
Occupy Wall Street, the protest movement that was big during the great recession.
For 80’s republicans, Unions became the penultimate evil with the Air Traffic Controller strike in 1981. When Ronnie R (correctly) fired everyone who wouldn’t cross the picket line, it sent a huge message that “unions are bad”.
Which is a shame. As others have written here: PUBLIC sector unions are an awful idea; PRIVATE sector unions, even if corrupt, ultimately have to negotiate something that doesn’t put their company out of business.
A good example may be Airline/Pilot unions. It’s a boom/bust cyclical business, but there is simply no way any airline CEO would give out a single penny of profits if not pressured by a united front of a workers group.
Do they sometimes overreach? Certainly, and bankruptcies (Eastern, United, Delta) happen because of it. That’s the inherent regulating mechanism.
Agree completely. Private sector unions need revived by public policy and public sector unions are not a good idea. They should be weakened. This will help the middle class.
I haven’t seen it mentioned yet, but one of the problems the unions brought on themselves is political: they donate and voted straight ticket Democrat for 75 years at D vs R ratios that rival blacks. If Aflcio is a top 10 DNC contributor for 50 straight years, of course the gop is coming after labor – they were essentially the funding and voter turn-out arm of the DNC. Probably a leadership versus troops thing, but its your group, votes, and money that paid for Carter, Clinton, Mondale, Gore, Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein, and Obama. Just look at the SEIU, they are essentially a marxist militia at this point, a few K98’s short of going all-out POUM.
There’s an interesting facet to that which I’ve recently come around to. All my life seeing unionized shops go under in my lifetime and the union took the blame, though come to find out it was always largely managements fault.
Unions have an important lesson for us. Standing alone, we are easily broken like sticks. Together, we are unbreakable. If only we had a symbol to express that truth and a political philosophy based on it. That would be fascinating.
Also, watch Newsies. Based on a true story. How that movie got past the censors I have no idea.
Another union lesson, don’t let your “leaders” sell you out for their own benefit.
I agree, if only there was a political theory inspired by the bundle of sticks metaphor!
Line, ISWYDT, bravo.
The market being the heavy handed arbiter between classes is one of the corruptions of modernism.
Traditional civilization evolved castes or estates that worked symbiotically. Each caste had a mixed economy that worked in the service of that particular caste. There was a reciprocity that was expected within the hierarchy of each caste and and a reciprocity that existed between the various castes. It wasn’t ever perfect but we did managed to build a civilization around this arrangement. It has its roots in the time our ancestors were chasing red-tail deer and woolly mammoths and functioned, yes with problems, until the enlightenment and the rise of industrial civilization. In everyone’s family tree there were ancestors who sat on the throne and ancestors who wallowed in the pigsty as their talents varied over the eons. Its breakdown and alteration into class conflict requires a multi-volume history to explain. Some of the seeds that caused this devolution were present at the rebirth of the West during the Carolingian Renaissance.
The collapse of the evolved estate system (at least 15,000 years old and probably a lot older if we include innate preferences we acquired from earlier hominids) can and does account for many of our present problems, not only the economic ones.
Man and the things men build change at a snails pace in comparison to the lifespan of a single generation. It took a long time to get here. I pray a pivot point comes quickly…but the road back to a sane well functioning civilization will be a long one with a lot of pitfalls along the way. No one here will ever see that day. Nor are the men and women who will see that day even yet a twinkle in their father’s eye. What we can do when that pivot point does comes is push things in the right direction. In the direction of at least the forms that created our civilization in the first place.
I am sorry I will not be around to see how things play out. It would be fascinating to watch, and the future, not too far beyond my lifetime, is likely to take turns and show us things that we can’t even conceive of.
YY, the likelihood of our fight being a multi-generational one is a reason why “the vision thing” is important for us. We need practical action now but we also need great projects and ambitions, as well as artistic and cultural perspectives that can unite and bring into focus the past, present and future across generations. For all that we give the Second Founding mythology of America a good and well-deserved beating around here, we’re going to need a replacement soon. Practicality descends into cynicism and ultimately nihilism if our people are starved of greatness. We need heroes & we need myths. The Han are probably more suited to grinding on without greatness than we are, but even they ultimately need heroes and grand visions to inspire people pulling widgets to believe they have meaning and their efforts are worth something.
You got me thinking.
What’s interesting about two of Zman’s big write-ups, the unions and the Irish, is that they did eventually end up “winning”, though their prize wasn’t actually what they were fighting for, their fight having been corrupted over the years.
How do we prevent that? Hmm, maybe some sort of victimization ethos? That in turn made me realize that’s where I run into issues: convincing white people that they are victims.
It’s interesting because victimology has a bad name among whites due to its use by blacks, but, it doesn’t seem to hurt the Jews much, to the contrary.
1. More Faun. I have been listening to as much as I can since last week.
And 2. Maybe Eric Striker would know more about the early union stuff. He seems to have come over to this side of the divide from labor issues. Could be wrong though.
3. More Faun. Or groups like them. Such great music must be shared.
A rehabilitated version of Eugene Debs is known by a lot of Americans thanks to Kurt Vonnegut’s ceaseless proselytizing in his books. One of the old construction tycoons used to say that he preferred many men from different nations on his crews so that they lacked a common tongue in which to commiserate. Another part of this history that got retconned is The Great Migration, sold to us as black people lighting for the North in search of opportunity and fleeing racism; they were brought, via train, and paid to go North to break the backs of nascent unions there. In one anecdote (from Studs Terkel, I think) a black Southerner relates walking through a Polish neighborhood in Chicago and getting his butt kicked, and then shouting, “You’re doing this to me because I’m black!” to which the Poles replied, “No, we’re doing this to you because you’re not Polish, and you’re a scab.” They deliberately tried to provoke violence by hiring white women to walk hand-in-hand with the black workers, wearing pillows under their shirts (to give the impression that the women were pregnant). Feel free to speculate on who the They were.
Who was Vonnegut’s Debs? I read a lot of his works as a teenager, but don’t recall the character. I do remember his descriptions of Dresden.
Kilgore Trout was Vonnegut’s representation of himself, who realized he was a character in a novel written by an author who wanted to write about someone who suffered all the time.
Kilgore Trout was Vonnegut’s veiled tribute to the great science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon . Sturgeon was the one who came up with “Live Long and Prosper” for Spock in the old Star Trek. Vonnegut literally has a protagonist named Eugene Debs Hartke in his novel Hocus Pocus, and makes reference to him in other books, especially being enamored with this quote: “While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”
― Eugene V. Debs
My father was a teamster and complained that the union leaders played footsie with management.
One reason for the decline of the unions is that they are seen as unnecessary. Back in the 1950s, the union would bargain with management to get a better deal for their members such as providing medical insurance. Now, people look to the government to force employers to provide, rendering the unions redundant.
At this point the kids of UAW executives and GM executives attend the same private schools outside of Detroit.
And none of them attend the same schools as the workers’ kids.
Ahhhhh. Another fine lecture, Z! Always a pleasure and a great change of pace.😊👍
Yes, the game between the Elites and the peasantry is much the same… but I think you may have pooped the bed on the media component of the presentation. The game has changed: the media is no longer relevant – or at least, it’s power to shape public opinion has collapsed. In the good ol’ days they could have hung us all with a few hit pieces and smears and that would be it. But nowadays our voices are only a click of the mouse away. Eg. Donald Trump – they’ve been trying to hang him for three years now. But he goes on twatter, you can get his words direct, minus any media spin. It goes the other way too. Nancy Pelosi is batchit crazy and in times past, the media turd polishing machine would swoop in to the rescue and smooth things over.
The rich and powerful have lost control of the narrative. How will the elite fare now?
Have a great Friday y’all!
The dynamics of the Babylon Bee phenomenon is something to behold. The Bee mocks the media by using the same false constructs and deliberate falsities that the MSM uses, but all in the context of satire. People click it and pass it around not because it is factually true, but because it properly and cleverly frames the Clown World we live in. The Left simply can’t process it or fight it, because the “pot calling the kettle black” is big on that one, with the difference being that the MSM pretends their version is true, while the Bee does no such thing. Talk about 4D chess…
I remember as a youth they have representatives from the UAW and GM come in to school and tell us how wonderful their cooperation has been and how much they love working together. Amusing PR propaganda that I’m sure most of the kids, even if they were 10, could see through.
Had Auto Union members in my town that would be basically retired in their forties and State of Michigan Union employees getting big houses in our small rural town at retirement thanks to their large pensions.
A difference I noticed between the cases above and ZMan’s examples are the sense of ethnic and community solidarity in these Union battles. The Unions that operate in modern times seem to be of the mentality that they got theirs. so everyone else can f*ck off.
Did it annoy you that the rich people in your town who were born into wealth never had to do a day’s labor in their life? That said rich people supported policies that demand cheap labor and off shoring of jobs? That the Business Lobbies in Congress destroyed the Rust Belt and made sure that Unions were always in decline??? Just wondering.
When the GOP killed the Unions the White Middle Class died with them.
Jealousy of hard working people that got to retire early is a key feature of Conservative voters…
Great work White GOP voters! Free Markets! Cheap Labor… Making sure the evil White Working class doesn’t get an “unfair retirement” really made this country great…
I belong to a Union and instead of people being happy I get paid a great Upper Middle Class wage, to a person my friends that I went to college with are furious at my lifestyle and benefits.
I on the other hand wish we could go back to the 50’s where this country made things and workers were Unionized. Then working class people would be retiring at 55 with nice homes and a good pension…
The GOP and Conservatives can’t allow that!
Once the owners and the workers stopped living down the street or in the next neighborhood over from each other, it was the beginning of the end. The responsibilities and obligations of each to the other, called-in face to face, at the grocery store, at the service club, or in church, kept things honest. It’s an element of community…
Owned! This is exactly how it is.
And the GOP got more and more arrogant and hostile towards the victims of their sociopathic greed-playing on people’s envy as stated here.
I’ve always though this was a major reason why the republi-frauds got their asses handed to them by Trump in the ’16 primary. That was a huge statement, one that the Rush’s and the Hannity’s of the world avoid like the plague.
I’m waiting for people to take the next step and realize that it’s the republi-frauds who are the biggest reason why socialism is becoming more acceptable…
The left is what it is-most people I know hate them. The problem is these same people are still gut-hooked by the ‘frauds…
“… it’s the republi-frauds who are the biggest reason why socialism is becoming more acceptable…”
This. We only have a communism problem, we only have a socialism problem, we only have an islamism problem because we had and have a cheap-labor-over-ALL-else money-worshipping globalism problem first.
I worked a few summers at GM plants. Nice pay for the work – I had to pay union dues despite not being an official member unless I worked over 90 days. I met my “Union Rep” one day – a very large young Italian gentleman wearing a pinstripe suit. One of the days I realized that stereotypes were often accurate.
“Big tech is the Pinkertons of the internet” – indeed.
It was Baldwin-Felts Agents involved in the Matewan massacre. A private detective agency much like the Pinkertons. I would recommend reading about the Battle of Blair Mountain to anyone studying the subject as another instructive example to the ones Zman talked about in the podcast.
A big problem has been the eclipse of the unions in private industry by public-sector unions the past 60 years. As these public-sector unions come to dominate elections, they goose their own pay and benefits. This soon could lead to bankruptcy in IL, NJ and other states. And of course they’re Left on immigratoin, diversity, affirmative action, etc. As even FDR warned in 1937: “All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.”
Corporate America and the GOP killed the private sector unions through two methods.
1) LBO’s in the 80’s wiped out millions of jobs in old school factories and corporations. A lot of those were union gigs. What Milken and the corporate raiders did was a act of economic terrorism of the 1st order. No sane country with a industrial policy would have allowed it but we did,.
BTW Thatcher allowed the same to happen to Britain’s industries and it too ruined their working class and crippled them economically.
2) NAFTA, WTO, PNTR for China destroyed over 8 miillion blue collar jobs which comprised the bulk of union workers, And we have been bleeding manufacturing jobs since then.,
I think a large component of the war on Whites is simply cutting the peasants back down to size. There were getting too uppity..
This is a big topic for me. I’ll soft-dox myself to Z and anyone else who was at Scandza Copenhagen in October as the guy who asked Mark Collett if he thought unions were something Our Guys could leverage in fighting muh globoshlomo capital. Mark was pessimistic, understandably, but I’m still cautiously optimistic.
Organized labor in America still has some resonance, particularly on the Legacy Left and the legal machinery is still in place. It’s a topic I’m going to mess around with in my own writing and I look forward to plugging into what Z has to say. Be back with more…
Will this be a 2 part podcast? I am hoping you end this with something “to be continued until next season.”
“…they’re not killing us [white people] yet…”
Sure about that? Death by drug overdoses and suicides of whites seems far less important than Congressional meetings on white supremacy. There might not be a secret cabal of evil people sitting around directly planning it, but the effect is the same.
Nope, there actually is a secret cabal of evil people sitting around planning it.
If not planning it, at least certainly celebrating it. But, yup, planning it as well, most likely.
You can’t use “Sackler” as a play in Scrabble, but it’s still an interesting word.
“There might not be a secret cabal of evil people sitting around directly planning it, but the effect is the same.”
Really?
https://www.adl.org/2019-adl-national-leadership-summit
Citizen, I plead guilty to assuming the best in people. Your link really says it all…”whatever you think is going on, it’s actually ten times worse” is not a bad guide to our times…
Here’s the agenda:
1. Countering anti-Semitism and hate crimes at home and abroad;
2. Opposing rollbacks of America’s commitment to be a haven for immigrants and refugees;
3. Combatting white supremacy and extremism; and
4. Supporting equality for LGBTQ people in the workplace, housing, and public accommodation
The meeting included police department reps from around the country, senators and congressmen, leading media figures, foreign Jewish leaders, big-time NGO leaders and a U.S. State Department special envoy. The whole thing was financed by some of the richest people in the world.
9-Fingered is right. There’s not a “secret” cabal. There’s a completely public cabal that openly states that it wants us out of power and helpless.
ADL has introduced a school program, “No Place For Hate”. The school districts are lapping it up. Basically all of these four things, translated into demonstrations, sign carrying, testimonials, and all the emotional triggers that kiddos are so prone to internalize. They read Anne Frank as a book project, and inculcate the Holo-thing as the singularly worst thing evah, and right around the corner again if their four things are not followed and demanded, Greta style, from all of us. Heaven help us all…
Actually, while I hate what the ADL and the Jewish community is doing to my community, I don’t hate them. They’re doing what they think is best for their people, which happens to be bad for my people.
We need to learn from them. Gentile whites will never be the same as Jews. We’re not comfortable being a scheming minority. However, for the time being, whites who want to preserve our people ARE a persecuted minority so we should look to the minority group that most successfully protects itself and even flourishes.
Citizen, it’s frustrating because it is every group for itself now, stepping on top of each other to jam “their” way of things down everyone’s throat. I can see two sides of what the ADL is doing and why (there is an educational and values side, but it is not the values of a lot of people, and hitting school kids when their own values are not fully formed and are suggestible seems awfully manipulative). “My way or the highway”, which is what a lot of these groups that represent a small fragment of the broader community are pushing, is no way to build a healthy society. For no other reason, these somewhat fringe, tiny minority groups should be careful, because what they are doing tribes everyone up, and small tribes are very vulnerable when the tribes start going after each other.
Even a dog knows the difference between being kicked and tripped over.
Given the systemic and targeted nature of whites being killed via synthetic opioids, one would be rather negligent in not thinking that this is being sanctioned by the higher ups in D.C. A cabal if you will. There are just too many tells.
When a kid can order synthetic opioids directly from China and receive it via E-packet with almost no worry of being pinched by the DEA. You have to think it’s being allowed for a reason. It only took me 5 minutes to find sites that sold the product.
Or why Trump and Congress refuses to hammer those Chinese companies selling bulk chemicals to the Cartels that make the Fentanyl. Oh not only that, I can buy bulk pharmaceuticals of every kind including PED’s in powder form by the kilo. And people wonder about the prevelance of PEDs. It’s never been easier to be a dealer.
Or why does Trump and Congress allow drug dealers to use Amazon, Walmart and Ebay to launder drug profits back to China and Mexico.
Or why is he and the DHS and DOJ are silent that the cartels are in every major city in the U.S. and in 40 countries across the globe.
Point is war has been declared on us and we better wake up to this fact.
I worked on the business end of unions back in my banking days. The local workers and some local business managers were ok guys but as soon as you got into the “leadership” it was all about getting free meals and tickets to sporting events. The higher you went, the deeper the corruption.
The union movement is a version of socialism. Many of us have been trained to believe “socialism bad”. In the real world, bottom-up socialism, at the micro or small community level, is important as a moral human safety net.
The problems involve “top down” socialism and unionism, where the interests of the leadership have no alignment or genuine concern with the people at the bottom who are theoretically the beneficiaries, but the leadership instead simply uses the plight of those at the bottom to leverage their own, different priorities.
Union leadership often suffers from their capacity to cheat the system without a strong likelihood of being caught, which an understanding of human nature suggests the leadership will exploit.
Then there is the matter of unionized government employees, where the tension between labor and capital, which finds a middle ground of wages for the workers versus profit to the ownership of the capital at risk, is broken. Governments don’t earn and shelter their own profits, and government leadership has no incentive to conserve or preserve capital’s role in the equation, so the unions run rampant.
Unions were fundamentally originally an attempt to upscale an unforced socialistic community safety net, but by employing different forms of coercion as it upscaled into a larger urban environment. Unions are inherently manipulative and exploitive, but in the right situations and with moral leadership (yeah, just like our moral political leadership—such jobs attract the dishonest ones like flies to rancid meat), they have an important and constructive role in things.
Check the current news in the UAW . Kickbacks and all kinds of corruption at the top. Everyday it gets deeper.
Dutch, I maintain my lolbertarian opposition to public employee unions (at least in a democracy) because of the unavoidable problem of management (politicians) colluding with the rank-and-file to sell out the owners (us). It’s a baked-in-bust-out.
I’ve done a 180 on private-sector unions. There are tough issues to work out and the balance of interests is tricky, but for large scale businesses, collective bargaining is really the only way to level the playing field between the interests of Big Biz and the workers.
The unions were a victim of their own success, but the ruling class also helped their decline into rackets. Rather than fight these guys they bought them off. When the head of the union is living in the same neighborhood as the owner of the plant, it’s hard to be enemies.
This is is spot on. Look at Trumka and his buddies. I saw companies in the 80’s actually bribe union leaders to betray their members. One glaring example was Rockwell aerospace division that was caught not only bribing the union leadership so they could slash wages and bennies but they also tapped the union phones. It absolutely destroyed the morale of the B-1B workforce because they had no one watching their back and management just bullied them at will.
Unions are needed because management will invariably shit on their workers. One trick is classifying hourily workers as salaried in order to work them for free. When I worked for CSC in the late 80’s through 99. Management turned a lot of senior hourly positions into salaried and made them work 8 hours a week for free. Mind you the AF was paying CSC 96$ a hour for each of these employees which CSC management pocketed. When it came to pay raises, management stated to it’s top performers “Big grateful you have a job” – that was our pay raise. Late we got a meal voucher to use at Von’s Supermarket. Then the company wondered why it a near 100% turnover rate ever 3 years or so.
When I wokred IT as a salaryman, it was a shit show of abuse. On call 24hours a day, no comp time, no OT pay, etc. You were expect to put in 50 hour workweeks for 40 hour pay. The last company I worked for expected me to perjure myself before DoD security inspectors. I quit before that.
Point is, all that Ayn Randy bullshit spewed by those in the tech sector is just that. BS. The corporations will totally s**t on their workers if given the chance. Those sociopaths in the executive suites do not care on iota.
IT has been this way for a long time now. About 15 years back the main scam was hiring some young White schmuck for what he thought was a great salary – and it would have been, for 40 hours work. Of course once he was there he found out that his evenings and weekends vanished into various “emergencies” at work. Nowadays they’ve moved onto using Indians for all that stuff. I hope the Indians screw them up the ass good and hard.
The Ayn Rand thing was big among my fellow cubicle slaves but I never quite understood it. Then again these guys did seem to have a tendency towards Stockholm Syndrome. You would see it in their dealings with women. They were either incels or had these girlfriends and wives who were either fat feminists or whores or both. Just couldn’t get enough abuse at work I guess.
If capital can incorporate, it’s only fair that labor can, too. I’d rather get rid of both corporations, to be honest. Corruption, like you say.
Then again the state is a corporation of sorts. This is the bad side of free association I guess. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
Who gets called on corruption I think has to do with who controls Sailer’s megaphone. Notice that the guys always portrayed as rotten to the core usually 1) were less bad than the people accusing them of being corrupt 2) happened to be popular with the unwashed, or people the Master Class in New England really hate, i.e. Huey Long, Jimmy Hoffa, Richard Nixon, Donald Trump. A fat sort of postmodern Tammany Hall type like Chris Christie getting his son into a museum when it’s technically closed will probably get more ink and pixels than someone the people in charge like selling nuclear secrets or socking away a few hundred million dollars’ of pension funds abroad. Hoffa actually capitulated less to mafia demands to raid the pensions than his successor, whose name no one probably knows without looking at Wikipedia.
Yea, globalist news rags likethe Detroit News has always been militantly anti-union.
There is the old joke that to get a UAW job at GM, you only needed to know how to operate a control with three buttons: on, off, and jam (if the assembly line had a hang-up) yet these ppl were getting fat wages and cushy benefits. Is it any surprise it went bankrupt. There are stories of ppl showing up late, or not at all, or punching in in the morning and sneaking out to spend the rest of the day at the local sports bar, and then punching out. If you need examples of how awful unions can be and how unions don’t value competence, I present teachers unions.
“There are things that are morally right because we believe them to be right on their face. Whether or not they hold up in the marketplace is immaterial.”
That truth is much easier understood in a cohesive homogeneous society. What unites modern Americans other than our capitalist system? At times a sense of patriotism, but increasingly not the case because of browns. (I say this as an ardent anti-communist, communism being evil in origin, theory, implementation because it breaks down the cultural cohesion and tradition of a society in favor of a utopianism). My personal loyalty lies to my God given heritage of European ancestry, Catholicism and fighting for a morally right America.
America is becoming less of a nation (a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory) with each passing decade. Subsequently, for “us” to do the morally right thing is increasingly untenable through the democratic process. What is an American in 2020? Versus an American in 1920? To awaken the remaining American people, aka European Americans since blacks as a whole though here since founding were not intended, are not capable, and feel justified in defiance and opposition to any sense of country over self, the only ones we can appeal to for the idea of “morally right” over marketplace/individualism/selfishness are of course actual Americans, European Americans. The value of the union movement then is to get individuals to view themselves as part of a bigger whole, the great struggle we have for individualist Europeans to join together for self-preservation. What will an American be in 2120?
American individualism is a tremendous topic too. A double-edged sword.
BTW, I listen to the Z Blog on Deezer and support on SubscribeStar. Keep up the great content!
Rotor, true. The challenge is finding the right vehicles to carry that identity and moral framework forward.
We can’t undo demographics and TPTB aren’t going to even slow the flow.
I think the union idea has merit but I also think it has many of the same issues as muh democracy.
Unions can work but the constituency must be as homogenous as possible; the voting bloc of unions, which is really a micro-democracy must have shared values and universal morality or it just won’t Hold together.
My dad worked in labor relations. I saw the management/union dynamics up close.
When the labor supply tipped brown, the unions became corrupt self-serving makework job factories of their own, totally detached from both the economic realities of their industry as well as their own purpose and end-goals.
The legacy was forgotten. The brown hoard merely inherited another gibs machine that in the end just accelerated the off-shoring, automation, and consolidation of the industry. Plants closed never to return. But the browns mostly stayed. The towns turned to barrios. I digress.
Perhaps thats just group dynamics in general, over time. But the necessity of subordinating self-interest for something greater, as you point out, seems nearly impossible to accomplish under a diversity is our strength constituency.
Especially if/when that same union/group is already surrounded by the behemoth of the State sponsored globohomo.
Z says: “The union movement is also a great way to begin thinking about the fact that not all things should be subject to market forces.”
This is an extremely important idea to understand, and it requires a bit of explication as to WHY all things should not be subject to market forces. Z explicates it from a very solid moral and humanistic perspective: “there are things that are morally right because we believe them to be right on their face.” Again, a very important statement.
The business about “market forces” is a technical thing which requires a bit of unpacking in order to be properly understood. In this country, we are conditioned to believe that “free markets” are inherently good, partly because in our language, the word “free” is associated with all things good. Also because the opposite type of market, a so-called planned or “command economy”, is associated with the evils of Communist tyranny, with jack-booted commissars and ugly, fat, frumpy Slavic women in uniforms barking orders at us. (Wait, don’t we have commissars and ugly women barking at us now?)
In reality, a so-called “free” market is merely a tool, a mechanism for attempting to establish accurate prices. Without at least quasi-accurate prices, a complex economy cannot function, because value is over- or under-estimated, which throws a monkey wrench in the whole vast complicated machinery.
It is very hard to accurately assess things like value and price, because they can mean different things to different people. This is why Marx’s ideas about capital, labor, and value, which (rightly or wrongly) are economic ideas, and his ideas about “alienation” and societal structure, which are NOT economic ideas, contradict each other, and always lead to a train wreck.
Free markets are a rough tool for establishing accurate prices and accurate assessments of value. They are crude and imperfect (there really never is a completely “free” market), they are simply better than the other tools on offer.
Opposition to the very real threats of Marxism (and also, the special interests of insiders) caused us to sacralize and valorize “muh free markets,” but this is a little like worshiping your toaster. A free market is just a tool.
Once you have established accurate prices and accurate value, you can then order your society according to other, perhaps higher, considerations — the good of the nation, for example, or the well-being of your workers, or an equitable order in producing and enjoying goods. Or, you could use your knowledge of accurate prices simply to enrich a hostile insider plutocratic class of parasites. Whichever you like. It is simply the case that you MUST have a clear idea of real value and real price before you entertain your various other societal programs and wish-lists.
That is all that free markets do. The rest is up to you.
Exactly. white Americans have been brainwashed into believing that they serve the great God Economy instead of the other way around. As Americans have less and less in common genetically and culturally, Free Markets and Democracy have become rallying cry for unity.
For your typical flag-waving CivNat, belief in those two things is what makes you an American, regardless of race or religion. Therefore, unfettered Free Markets and Democracy must be defended at all costs or our country is lost.
The CivNat’s are a shrinking part of the equation, younger people both Millennial’s and Zyklons run to socialism.
The issue forward is really Cultural Marxism and immigration Get rid of those and most of the issues we have will go away.
Its even slightly possible that a sufficiently Socialist Nationalist or Social Democratic USA with a homogeneous enough population might be able to reverse course
This is though a couple of decades out if possible at all. CivNat boomers will die off and us Gen X mostly small in number will age out . Th eonly replacment are the 30 year old boomers and .mil types on the lithium lick and they aren’t that numerous.
Whether the masses can be lead in the proper direction, SN/SD economy fine Multicultural and Cultural Marxism is uncertain.
Let me add a caveat. This might not b able to reverse the current population course which is driven by tech and urbanization. It might simply slow the process and make life more pleasant during what may be an unavoidable collapse.
I don’t know. Its won’t be easy if it possible to get fertility rates up by 33% just to stabilize the White population or 17% for other groups, maybe more.
Its simply possible that there are too many humans and nature i
I have a slightly different take.
In a closed system / society, the job market will force employers to pay well enough to keep and retain reliable workers. As soon as you open the borders and overload the supply side of the equation, the value of workers plummets. Doesn’t matter if it’s 1880 or 2020. I think of unions and minimum wages as attempts to offset the destruction caused by excessive immigration.
I had a conversation with a friend last year who was bitching that there weren’t enough cheap immigrants to drive company trucks. I pointed out that 40 or 50 years ago, they would have had to hire full-time white guys and pay them middle-class wages. That boggled his mind – he pointed out that it would destroy their cost structure. I pointed out that 50 years ago the President of the company probably made 3 or 4 times the salary of the drivers, not 200 times.
Had the same discussion with my father in law, except about landscapers. I said that there were landscapers in 1980s before all the immigration and that there are landscapers right now in Maine, New Hampshire and rural Minnesota that use white guys. So, yeah, you can have a landscaping industry without Mexicans. You just have to pay the guys more so they don’t have to live like, well, Mexicans.
He did what fuc$ing boomers always do. He didn’t disagree, he just shrugged, like “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it and not my problem anyway.” Utterly brainwashed and beaten.
In the 70s and 80s landscapers were called “neighborhood boys”. I made some good money cutting lawns.
Yep. Friend of mine as a kid started by mowing a few neighbors yards, then bought a truck and starting mowing more yards, then started doing some more landscaping.
Still does it, mostly on his own or with his kid. Lives in a nice little house and has a good life. But then, that area doesn’t have immigrants.
I used to rake leaves. My old man wasn’t about to give me money for nothing so I had to earn it. Seems like kids don’t do that anymore
Drake, Landscaping was my job as a HS kid. Actually before too. Worked at 13. Graduated to power tools at 14. Before that we all picked berries at the local berry farms.
The owner of the company was a landscape architect. We did full build jobs but the bread n butter was maintenance. He designed mostly at night and on weekends in his office in his modest ranch house.
His days were with us in the field doing hard labor. All white kids. Mostly friends of his son. We worked our asses off. It was brutal work but paid well, around 2-3x minimum wage at the time Which was $3.35/hr.
There was a lot more to it than wages. We were all part of the same community. The wealthier people were our clients. My friend (owners son) and all of our other friends always had a job with him if we needed it.
We bonded over work. we learned about serving customers, doing quality work, about mutual respect that comes from a trade well practiced.
Never shirtless, even in the worst heat. Tucked in. Well-kept hair. Clean clothes to start the day. Never used the clients space for anything, restroom, eating, etc. jobsite scrubbed clean end of day even on week long projects.
It was militant. But he had clients for years and good strong white boys for labor for years.
Then it changed. That “cost model” came into play and illegals flooded into the companies that went straight to leveraged-scale. Fleets of trucks. Brown guys everywhere. They hired their own people.
No more landscaping jobs. Also, no more community. My friend took over the biz but it never really recovered. He now spends most of his time flipping houses.
At the time I of course had no idea that those years would be some romantic nostalgia of some bygone era. I’m not even that old!
What are you doing about it?
Well, for one, trying to wake up other whites. Also, joining groups that might someday help us. Contributing money to people like Z who will help organize and recruit. Contributing money to the very few politicians who seem to be on our side.
Also, I’m letting people know publicly that I favor my own people. I’m also not letting people like my father in law just get away with saying things like he did. I’m letting others like us know that you can stand up for our side.
Something else you want me to do?
So what many Paleo Cons and even regular types have been doing for decades. Of course they didn’t play the generational blame game.
So what are your suggestions, smart guy?
And, no, the ten or so Paleo Cons weren’t doing what we’re trying to do. They’re Sailer types. If they did meet, it was an intellectual circle jerk, discussing the finer points of the Constitution and libertarian theory and how that would solve our problems.
They sure as hell weren’t trying to form community groups, political groups and advocacy groups, which is my ultimate goal. Will we succeed? I don’t know, but at least we’ll try. The Paleo dozen didn’t even do that.
Btw, in my real world, there are many under 50 guys who have woken up. I don’t know a single man over 60 who has. Small sample size, but from what you can see on this board, I’m probably not alone.
And if I was to blame any generation, it’d be the “Greatest Generation,” who enacted all of these stupid laws. The Boomers just didn’t wake up when we still had a chance to change course. Now, it’s too late.
If the Boomer want to redeem themselves, they should use the advantage that they have – retirement and money. They can’t get fired so they have so much less to lose that the rest of us.
Boomers should be out front, publicly starting and funding various groups for our side because they have the money and can’t get fired. But where are they? Safe in their Sarasota bungalow, watching Fox News, cursing Iran for shooting missiles at “our boys.”
I already put my job and family at risk by publicly stating a lot of what I say on this board. Occasionally, I even get some back-up from other whites (even women), but never – never! – from a Boomer. They just hold their drinks and look around.
Citizen. I’ve said much the same before here. I’m an older Xer and outside of guys I’ve met solely through Our Thing, I don’t know anyone older than me who’s any more based than Tea Party-Breitboomer level.
You are 101% correct on what Boomers should be doing. Retired, well-funded guys should be a vanguard for Us rather than leaving the young guys to man the front lines alone.
In a cultural and demographic war of ideas, money and influence, the roles found in normal physical war are reversed. We geezers have the hoplite heavy armor and weapons in this war, but too many of us are content to watch younger more vulnerable skimishers do the heavy fighting though they are comparatively unarmored and under-equipped.
Exile, thanks. To be honest, I think that a lot of criticism directed at Boomers is misplaced. It would have been hard in 70s, 80s and even to a degree in the 90s to see just how bad this would get. The fact that they didn’t stop it when we had a chance is somewhat understandable.
No, I have a problem with Boomers for what they’re doing now – which is nothing. What our movement desperately needs is well-funded organizations with normal individuals publicly at their head. For the love of God, that’s exactly what Boomer can provide.
GenXers and younger aren’t in a position to do that. We can lose everything. (Hell, I’ve already got several neighbors that would denounce me in a heartbeat.) But Boomers could. We need a thousand Jared Taylors but with more money.
Think if just twenty Boomers in every city get together and start pooling their money and expertise. Then they combined with other Boomers in other cities and started funding European-American organizations out in the open. Hired lawyers to sue anyone and everyone. Donated to political campaigns. Hired guys fired because they spoke out.
Would they catch hell? Yes. But they’d have each other so what would they care. They have their friends. They have their money. They can’t get fired.
Ironically, the Boomers could save us all. They could make our resurrection unimaginably easier.
But they sit there watching Fox news, pretending to believe their stupid color-blind CivNat lies while deep in their brains knowing that they’re whoring their people over because they don’t want to be called a racist.
What kind of person watches the flood waters rise toward their sleeping grandchild and does nothing.
Citizen says,
“Think if just twenty Boomers in every city get together and start pooling their money and expertise. Then they combined with other Boomers in other cities and started funding European-American organizations out in the open. Hired lawyers to sue anyone and everyone. Donated to political campaigns. Hired guys fired because they spoke out.”
And then,
“But they sit there watching Fox news, pretending to believe their stupid color-blind CivNat lies while deep in their brains knowing that they’re whoring their people over because they don’t want to be called a racist.”
That last sentence is not a good way to approach someone who you want help from.
Just sayin’.
Lorenzo, we’re running out time. Either Boomers want to help or they don’t. Make the call. I’d love their help. But if they don’t want to step up, l need to know to make plans.
Their grandchildren are screwed if we stay on our current path. I shouldn’t have to ask for their help. They should be offering. If I have to ask – given what they know – then they’re not worth the effort.
“That last sentence is not a good way to approach someone who you want help from.”
We’re not making an “approach.” We’re here to have an honest, adult conversation about issues important to Us. This isn’t a fundraising drive.
Repetition 1001. NABALT, but those among them who insist on having their entire generation shielded from criticism with ADL-like solicitude and demand their ring must be kissed before they stand up for their own people and their own children are not the kind of people who are ever going to help anyway.
“You are 101% correct on what Boomers should be doing. Retired, well-funded guys should be a vanguard for Us rather than leaving the young guys to man the front lines alone.”
Last I heard from Generation Xers, they were anxious for the Boomers to die off so the Really Smart Xers could finally get control and fix things. Now the Boomers are supposed to do the heavy lifting in the creation of Honkeytopia. There must have a memo I didn’t get.
Look, we’re trying. Boomers have something the rest of don’t: They can’t get fired. If you can’t understand what a massive advantage that is, well, thanks, but no thanks.
I’m doing all kinds of thing so that I’ll be financially independent. Is it because I want to play golf? No. It’s so I can help our cause. Boomers are already there. And what do they do with that gift? Nothing.
Lorenzo, stop deflecting. Am I right about what Boomers could and should be doing?
I don’t exempt older Xers from this, FWIW. I said “we geezers” not “you geezers.”
But let’s stay on point.
I’m well aware that NABALT on this. A lot of Boomers are still plugged into the system in ways that legitimately limit them – families to protect, etc.
But we talk about groups around here. As a group, Boomers are better positioned to vanguard for Us than younger guys.
Nothing the white-knights and butt-hurt personalizers have said (or frankly can say) suggests otherwise. They’re just using deflection and emotion to shift the discussion. I consider the point made.
Organize. One institution to support is the trade union movement, which conservatives have stupidly maligned for decades under the influence of libertarian economics and the donors who spout it.
But how is any political party going to be “the party of the working class” if it doesn’t support strong unions and collective bargaining?
In many, many communities the strongest bond, the most culturally cohesive “little platoon,” was the union local. Unionism kept generations voting Democratic even after that party had abandoned the people who built it. If you want to strengthen the grandsons and granddaughters of the folks Zman talks about in this podcast, support strong unions and collective bargaining.
In capitalism, union is strength, not diversity or individualism.
David, to riff on Vizz’s joke from yesterday, whenever someone criticizes your generation, please go out of your way to take it personally. Please keep white-hair-knighting for strangers whose only affinity with you is age, people that hate your people and our way of life.
Exile, we all deserve some blame. GenXers like myself came face-to-face with all of this in the 90s and early 2000s, but we’re slow to wake. Boomers likely didn’t have to see much of it in their personal lives so why would they wake up.
I’m more concerned with now. We need to work together and, as we talked about in other comments, Boomers are uniquely equipped to help our cause. I just wish they would.
Here in Oregon there are apparently still not quite enough beaners to do ALL the yardwork. They do most of it though. A few years back I saw my first White landscaper guy and learned something. Apparently leafblowers have a throttle! He kept using it as he needed to blow some leaves into a pile so the sound went up and down in intensity. Yes, you apparently don’t have to keep it going full blast all the time.
Yeah the “cost structure” of constant labor wage suppression via immigration coupled with moving the bulk of a living wage onto the public balance sheet.
My GF runs a pre-school company. The only way the wages make sense is by factoring in the discounted childcare for their own kids, a high income husband with health benefits, or – like 50% of the teachers, qualifying for medicaid. This in a top-tier State, top-tier cities in terms of quality of life.
Fully employed, state certified, job-specific education and credentials, working with children, and STILL on medicaid. Thats the cost structure.
No, your take is correct, and it doesn’t contradict my own. One might (at least in a sanely-run society) think of unions as a kind of citizenship in your profession. By keeping strict limits on citizenship or union or guild membership, you put a control on the value of your labor. This doesn’t distort price mechanisms or defy the free market so long as you are willing to say, Well we just so happen to have a market in which these types of labor price controls are taken as a given. That is simply healthy, human-based reasoning.
Of course if this goes too far –which is exactly what happened — then you begin to get price distortions which throw the whole system out of whack. The idea is to stay sane, to have a sturdy floor but also a ceiling. You also have to be on guard for normal human vice: featherbedding, goldbricking, fake overtime etc. Adams said a democracy requires a virtuous people, and so, in theory, does a successful, non-self-destructing union.
Administered honestly and competently, unions are a great force for social stability. They provide the essentials for family formation for a working man: a man with a union job with a predictable, identifiable wage and the promise that he won’t be fired on a whim, can plan ahead for the future. He can marry, buy a house, raise kids. He knows what his work hours will be, so he can plan time with his children. Thus, unions allow communities to form, prosper, and thrive.
The dominant destructive force in our current situation is what’s called “precarity”: every job, every living situation is precarious, unstable, temporary, unpredictable. If you can be replaced by an imported Dot tomorrow for any reason, how on earth can you even sign a two-year lease, let alone start a family? This is the death of community, and communities are killed by open borders, lack of reliability, and the corporate strip-mining of social capital. Corporations can offer Juan and Pajeet poverty wages, and the reason they will take them is that it’s nicer to be poor in America than to be poor back home in their sh!thole. The reason it’s nicer here is because White people have created solid social capital, which is a freebie the corporations can offer Pajeet which they don’t have to pay for. They can just steal it from Whitey and give it to Pajeet instead of benefits.
Of course, once all the pajeets have bankrupted and driven out all the whites, there is no more social capital, but who cares at that point? Whitey is gone, Pajeet Jr has his anchor-baby citizenship,,and the corporation has long since left for India anyway.
Which brings us to capital flight across borders, the evil driving force behind precarity, but that’s for another day.
This helps me make sense of something I noticed as a kid compared to now. I’m a mid-boomer and we lived in tract homes, generic suburbs. But I think back to the occupations of the dads in the neighborhood. My father was a GS type, supporting five kids. We had several engineers who worked at the (nuclear weapons) test site, some guys with office jobs in commerce, one furniture-store worker, but also the AD and football coach of the local university. And – the year I went away to college, the coach of a pro sportsball team moved in.
I’m thinking laborers no longer live with sportsball types. Communities have been fragmented nine ways to Sunday. Looks like that was the plan.
fuck yeah friday! time for the zmooth voize of the zman