Democracy in America: Influence of Democracy on Wages - 11-3-2010

Reading this chapter, Influence of Democracy on Wages, reminded me of Anderson, Indiana, and other Indiana factory towns:

As a large capital is required to embark in the great manufacturing speculations to which I allude, the number of persons who enter upon them is exceedingly limited; as their number is small, they can easily concert together and fix the rate of wages as they please.

Their workmen, on the contrary, are exceedingly numerous, and the number of them is always increasing; for from time to time an extraordinary run of business takes place during which wages are inordinately high, and they attract the surrounding population to the factories. But when men have once embraced that line of life, we have already seen that they cannot quit it again, because they soon contract habits of body and mind which unfit them for any other sort of toil. These men have generally but little education and industry, with but few resources; they stand, therefore, almost at the mercy of the master.

 I dealt with too many people without skills, with only a  high school education, who could not cope with the loss of factory work. The workers and people of Anderson learned the mercy of General Motors. I think the only honest criticism anyone can make about the United Auto Workers is how they well they factored that American industry would endure forever as it had in 1973. In that they were the same as every same as every American, every Andersonian, until GM closed its last planet.

Looking forward, you should all ponder this paragraph:

When competition or some other fortuitous circumstance lessens his profits, he can reduce the wages of his workmen almost at pleasure and make from them what he loses by the chances of business. Should the workmen strike, the master, who is a rich man, can very well wait, without being ruined, until necessity brings them back to him; but they must work day by day or they die, for their only property is in their hands. They have long been impoverished by oppression, and the poorer they become, the more easily they may be oppressed; they can never escape from this fatal circle of cause and consequence.

I know several people who think cutting off unemployment benefits is a good thing. I say doing so will be an will be an interesting experiment, one that that almost makes me glad for prison. I ask what will these people do for food and shelter and clothing when they lose their unemployment checks? I wonder about the tax revenues lost to local and state governments. I also wonder what this says about us as a Christian nation. I do not see how this would increase employment. Moreover, I am a walking example of being careful what you ask for.

Yes, you do live in interesting times.

sch