| Workers of the World, Unite! Those are the famous words that end the Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1848. The same manifesto begins: "A spectre is haunting Europe -- The spectre of Communism." Marx proceeds from there, with an argument that I could drive my friend's shiny new truck through, to co-opt one of the most venerable instutions of Man into his ideological war against the lazy, hapless, helpless bourgeois. He equates them to the lillies of the field, despite the fact these idle showhorses built empires beneath them. Forgive the flowery speech. The most important fact from the above is the date, 1848. That's seventy-two years after the American revolution, in 1776. A hundred and twenty-eight years before that, in 1648, exactly two hundred years before the Manifesto messed up a perfectly good sheet of paper, coopers and shoemakers formed guilds in Boston. Two hundred years! A full three hundred years before that, seven formal guilds and a football team of smaller ones thrived in Renaissance Italy, and these guilds had thier roots in the Middle Ages, around 1100 or so. The Labour Union was alive and growing well over, very much well over, a half a millennium before Marx sat down to write. So. When, how, and why did Communism, the moonshine of socialisms, co-opt the whole concept of the Labour Union, and plant thier ideological flag on it like it was a newly discovered island? Why did we let some wild-haired man with dreams of an evaporating state haul off one of the most venerable of all American Instutions? Why can't I say Labour Union in a room with five other people without at least three of them thinking, "Socialism"? There is nothing inherantly socialistic about a Labour Union. Sun-Tzu once said this: If your forces are ten to the enemy's one, surround him. If five to one, attack him. If twice as numerous, divide your army in two. If equally matched, we can offer battle. If slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy. If unequal in every way, we can flee from him. The rich have been making deals since the dawn of time. That is, after all, how they got rich. For one man of a lower class to face the organization and numbers of a multinational corporation, to fight for the wage that he thinks is fair, alone, is a tactical act of suicide. The fight is unequal in every way, and as Sun-Tzu says, the only option is to retreat. If you're not that fond of giving up, of course, you can always shift the odds. Get some numbers, form a group, choose some leaders. Use group leverage. Coorperation between men, for mutual profit, is the essence of capitalism, the eseence of trade. Guilds were formed to increase salaries for thier members, and increase social status for the same members. What's socialist, Communist, about that? Nothing, really. Every history, every discussion, every weaver of rhetoric, however, by and large, wants to portray Socialism and Unions as a tag team against Buisnesses and Capitalism. This representation of history shows every sign of being false. Communism and Unions do not have any more intrinsic a connection than Organized Crime and Unions, or whipped cream and Unions, or Bhudda and Unions - because there is no evidence of it. And lots of evidence to the contrary - see the history in the introduction. I want to do my bit, right now, to do to this inerrant meme what Alexander did to the Gordian Knot - cut it in half! There's no causal connection here. Labour Unions did not cause Communism. Communism did not cause Labour Unions or Guilds. Communism shared a bus bench with the Labour Unions for a trip around the block and we've been paying for it ever since. Labour Unions can be capitalistic organizations. After all, in the pursuit of 'simple' money, they've led us to topple princes, crush slavery, and cast away kings. Or, they can be authoritiarian organizations, like many are today, and try to enforce thier will by demanding the passage of laws through the lobbying of Congress. They are neither, however, by default. Any union is a result of what it's members make it, and does not come into being saddled with any ideology. |