Curious Why Conservatives Think This

[discocrisco01]

Free Republic Comment
"Union thugs.

Union fascists.

Unions = communism

Why do people think like that? I think the main problem is conservatives are very simple-minded. It appears to me that conservatives have done a through inventory of themselves

A union is not inherently communist. A defination of union is "•an organization of employees formed to bargain with the employer". That is all the union is. Most union shops supports a regulated, market economy. A market economy is "•an economy that relies chiefly on market forces to allocate goods and resources and to determine prices". Communism means "•a form of socialism that abolishes private ownership
"/

Most unions believe that the wealthy have the right to have private ownership of land, capitial, and real estate. Unions are formed to be internal control aganist the excesses of wealthy in society. An internal control is defined as "designed to promote efficiency or assure the implementation of a policy or safeguard assets or avoid fraud and error etc". Excessive wealth actually harms the ability for market-based economy to work efficiently and therefore, when unchecked results in ineffiencies and slows the economy growth to halt.


Therefore, this guy is wrong and is a moron. He has no basis for his arguement.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. My guess is that communism is organized (excuse the pun) around the worker

and so is the concept of the Union. The worker is on the same par as the capitalist with the illusion that they are enemies instead of complementary parts of the same system. Nothing more complicated than that.

[XanaDUer]

2. Three decades of RW agitprop

yep.

[gratuitous]

3. I would not dignify the process as "thought"

It's a stimulus-response reaction that an amoeba would consider primitive.

[OHdem10]

4. That is just name calling. What they really want is to get rid of

unions. While the GOP have all the Business Help with their
electoral campaigns, the Unions are the biggest help to Democrats.
In fact the Democratic Party would essentially collapse without
Unions. Guess what the Republicans want to destroy Unions
and thereby weaken the Democratic Party so much that they
Republicans can be totally in charge for the next 50 years.

Calling Union names is just one of the ways of trying to weaken
unions. Tying Unions to Marxism or any other boogey man is
a tactic. Union Busting is a tactic.

The Ultimate goal is a Democratic Party so weak they cannot
win elections.

[el_bryanto]

5. While everything said above is largely true

the Communists and Socialists in America were some of the first to want to unionize the "unskilled." Early on there was a division between skilled workers which could unionize (or at least had a somewhat easier time of it) and unskilled labor (largely factory workers, which couldn't). Even the skilled worker unions weren't as interested in unionizing the unskilled because they saw it as watering down their own gains.

Communists and socialists saw, correctly, that there were going to be a lot more unskilled workers and that they needed to be unionized for unions to amount to much in the US. So they started pushing things (along with other visionaries who had nothing to do with communism/socialism). Of course as these movements grew and became more mainstream, they pushed Communists and Socialists aside (which by this time had other issues frankly).

Bryant

[Statistical]

10. Exactly.

The association stuck.

Now no doubt TPTB actively promote that false association today but there is some historical basis to it.

Communists & Socialist saw Unions as a way to gain economic and political power. They failed to achieve that goal but the Unions outlived the attempt.

[el_bryanto]

15. Communists and socialists, for all their other failings, also wanted to help workers

and saw Unions as a way to do that.

Marxism is a dead end, but many of the people who followed it were genuine.

Bryant

[Statistical]

19. I agree with that statement.

I just think money & power corrupts. It corrupts politicians, it corrupts banksters, it corrupts CEO.

In a country like China or Soviet Union theoretically everyone is equal but some people will be in places (high ranking party members) of immense power and money. That ends up corrupting. The same person who likely has the drive, ambition, and cut-throatedness to be a politician, or CEO likely ends up as a high ranking party member.

Sadly it is human nature.

[rucky]

6. Any breath of fair wealth distribution gets a knee-jerk & hateful reaction.

Because they confuse political systems with economic systems - often on purpose, but most people have been duped to believe that fair distribution of wealth only happens in dictatorships, and that's what they associate with the word "socialism". The reality is that our income gap is an indication of a less democratic society, and strong democracies like in Scandonavia tend to have the most equal distribution of wealth. They also equate taxes and regulation as the enemy of a "free market" - when the most corrupt and inhumane countries are the ones with the low taxes and zero regulations while the most thriving capitalist systems like Germany right now have a high level of taxes and regulations that's working in favor of both business and workers' interests (because of less corruption due to equal income distribution).

A healthy democracy has a fair amount of worker protections, living wages and a strong safety net - because that's what everybody wants in life. If the people are truly in charge, they'd have that and be more than happy to pitch in for it. The reason why we don't see that here is not because the government programs we've created are sucking our treasury dry - it's because they haven't been given a chance to work, due to corruption and influence and unfriendly political agendas. Unions are fighting to preserve a healthy democracy - our right to organize and negotiate the terms of our careers. What's more "free market" than that? Sadly, not enough people see the connection between why we're fighting and what's happening to their own security & opportunities.

[white_wolf]

7. That is what really annoys me

they can't separate economic polices from political ones. Communism and Socialism are economic polices not forms of government. In fact Right Wingers should love communism since they hate government and Communism ultimately seeks to create a classless and stateless society.

[Statistical]

13. That isn't completely true.

Communism isn't detached from political structure. It abolishes private ownership of property. That can't be achieved without political control (laws, enforcement, etc).

Theoretically it would be possible to have a Democratic Socialist state however communism relies on a vanguard party (communist party) to control political structure during the transition to a stateless and classless society. It is simply incompatible with Democratic forms of government.

[white_wolf]

16. Thanks for clearing that up

I probably should have put the transitional stage in there, especially since it is likely as far as any attempt at Communism can get. That's why I favor Democratic Socialism.

[TomClash]

8. They want more money

And then when they get it - they want more.

Unions boost wages and benefits. They want the difference between the union wage and the "market" wage.

Unions elect Democrats. They want to elect Republicans.

[rucky]

14. They ask for more because they know how to negotiate.

They don't always get what they ask for, but they make concessions to get a contract through.

Take away that right and there's no "wanting" - we'll all just get what we get.

[Johonny]

9. they tend to be glass half mt people

they see the 50 cents from the paycheck the union takes. They don't see the 20 $, a pension, time off and health care insurance the union brings.

[GoCubsGo]

11. They didn't do an inventory of themselves.

Doing an inventory of themselves means thinking for themselves, and they don't seem to be capable of doing that. They only do and think what they're told, and nobody told them to do that. Had they done so, some of them might actually realized that they've been fed a huge steaming pile of shit all their lives. They think "unions=communists" and spew shit like "union thugs" because that's what they were told to think and say.

[Brewman_Jax]

12. Most freeper types hate the idea of regulations

because THEY want the chance to become mega-rich when it's their turn.

[dawg]

17. You are a bean-counter, just like me.

Am I wrong?

[sharesunited]

18. For a union to have any power requires solidarity not only among its members, but with the public.

Discouraging replacement labor from stepping up and filling the jobs of fired striking workers is where the thug imagery enters in.

It's especially difficult to combat the risk of wholesale replacement when unemployment is high and many are eager to take work.

If you can do it with consciousness raising, that's preferable.

If you must do it with other means, that's terrible public relations.

[Marr]

20. Because their authorities tell them so. That's really all there is to it.

Conservatives are, for the most part, right wing authoritarians who side with tradition/authority as a reflex. It's just a part of their psychological makeup (check out any of the sociological studies on authoritarianism).

Their authorities tell them these things about unions, so they believe these things. Logic and reason really doesn't enter into it at all.