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Human
Events...
The Political
Resource In Wisconsin
The Wisconsin protesters are cultivating their most important asset.
by John Hayward
02/22/2011
People are naturally inclined to cultivate valuable resources to
improve their lot in life. In a politicized economy, influence is
an extremely valuable resource. In fact, as more of the economy
falls under political control, influence becomes the most important
commodity. What we are witnessing in Wisconsin is the cultivation
of this political resource.
Public employee unions exist outside of market forces. For
instance, they are protected against competition. Even in the
case of education, where private schools do exist, they are not truly
“competing” against public schools, because citizens pay for public
schools whether their children attend or not. Private competition
against other civil services is either placed at a similar
disadvantage, or completely against the law.
Because they are protected from competition, public employees don’t
feel the consequences of poor performance as quickly as private-sector
workers. This is especially noteworthy in the case of unionized
public-school teachers, who have turned in decades of deteriorating
performance, which makes American kids sitting ducks in academic
competition against countries that spend far less money on education.
In Wisconsin, according to a March 2010 article in the Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel, “reading scores for Wisconsin’s African-American
fourth-graders trail those of their racial peers in every other state
and the District of Columbia,” while “fourth-graders as a whole in
Wisconsin are losing ground in reading while other states make
gains.” Meanwhile, at the eight-grade level, “black students
scored poorer in reading than students for whom English is not their
native-born language.” This is the work product of teachers whose
average salary plus compensation reaches into six figures, and who
launched an insurrection because they were asked to shoulder a small
percentage of the cost for providing their now-infamous “zero
contribution” pension plans.
The public sector is shielded from the economic realities that would
apply swift and painful corrective input to a malfunctioning private
corporation. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is trying to close a
$3.6 billion budget deficit, a fiscal reckoning that was delayed by a
$2 billion infusion of federal money from the Obama “stimulus” program
last year. Private industries can’t limp along for years with
gigantic budget deficits, or count on infusions of taxpayer cash to
balance their books (unless, of course, they get a government
bailout.) A private company going off the rails must make hard
choices quickly, or face bankruptcy. Government doesn’t go
bankrupt for a long time. It just chugs along on borrowed and
imaginary money, doing the same things that caused it to become
insolvent, until the debt becomes so huge it can no longer be ignored.
For all of these reasons, the fate of public employees is determined by
politics, not market realities. Influence becomes their essential
resource, cultivated through huge political donations under normal
circumstances, and noisy demonstrations in emergencies. Using
this influence brought immediate results, as Democrat lawmakers fled
the state to avoid a vote the unions would lose. To give you an
idea how extraordinary this level of service to a powerful constituency
is, consider that one of the reasons Wisconsin is having fiscal
problems is a $200 million raid on the Injured Patients and Families
Compensation Fund, conducted by Walker’s Democrat predecessor in
2007. Did any Democrat lawmakers flee the state to prevent this
illegal raid from taking place? Of course not. Mere
conscience would never provoke such behavior… but a large, wealthy,
well-organized union can demand it.
Look at the situation from the public employees’ point of view.
It’s not surprising they don’t like the idea of sacrificing some of
their benefits. They can’t protest by leaving their current
positions and finding more lucrative work with a competitor, or
becoming entrepreneurs and starting their own businesses. They
don’t see their employer, the government, standing on the verge of
closing its doors unless they make sacrifices, no matter how dire
Governor Walker says the budget situation might be. They’re not
worried about losing market share to aggressive competition and going
out of business.
These people exist within a system that makes it logical to stage a
wildcat strike and march around the Capitol, screaming threats.
The resource of political influence is cultivated by maintaining
solidarity, which requires inflaming passions against a designated
common enemy – thus, a sea of “Walker = Hitler” signs. In the
zero-sum world of central planning, those who would take
State-allocated dollars away from you are your enemies, not your
competitors.
The Wisconsin showdown is a preview of the future that awaits us all,
if politicians are allowed to become masters of the economy. When
the private sector withers away, everyone will be obliged to join some
manner of collective, and begin cultivating the resource of
influence. It is a poisonous crop, which makes for a bitter
harvest.
Read the story plus comments at Human
Events
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