I had a delightful time tonight in a discussion with a person who works in one of the chemical industries. It was over politics and religion. I am afraid that we missed talking about sex, which is just fine with me. However, I realized that it might be good to take a moment to more clearly define myself.
I am not a laissez faire capitalist. You probably knew that already. Neither am I a socialist. And, as you may have guessed, I tend towards ordoliberal capitalism. (All this with apologies to those who say that I ought not to use the word capitalism.) So, what are some of the differences between laissez faire and ordoliberal approaches to the free market?
Both approaches to the free market seek to maximize the efficiency and productivity of the free market. However, there are some clear differences of opinion on how best to accomplish that. A laissez faire person believes that the free market becomes most efficient with the lowest taxes possible and the least government regulation.
An ordoliberal person believes that the free market maximizes its efficiency and productivity with appropriate government boundaries. For instance, monopolies are considered dangerous to the free market because they minimize efficiency and productivity as well as raise prices. Monetary policies should not be left to the free market but need to be guided by semi-independent agencies, such as the Federal Reserve system. The free market can sometimes best be served by additional regulations in areas not directly linked to the free market. Thus, President Theodore Roosevelt was a strong believer in conservation and started both the national park and the national forest system. Why? Because in the long run, fouling our own nest was not sound thinking for either ecological or free market reasons. Note that Theodore Roosevelt also believed in unions that opposed management. Why? “‘I would guarantee by every means in my power the right of laboring men to join a union, and their right to work as union men without illegal interference from either capitalists or nonunion men'” (qtd. in Mowry 141). Roosevelt believed in unions in principle; he did not want either labor forces or capitalists to go too far in asserting their ‘rights.’ “Big labor, like big capital,” [TR] remarked, “was one of the laws of the social and economic development of the age.” Unions, he believed, contributed to the general welfare” (Mowry 141).” Shall I remind you that Teddy was a Republican?
Let me comment on why Teddy supported unions. Management, without the opposition of unions is all too likely to mistreat workers. Just read the tales of Charles Dickens or the history books from the Industrial Revolution. We forget what life was like for the workers before the advent of unions. Teddy was quite aware of that and saw unions as a needed antidote to a short-sighted management. In fact, the result of union activity was an increase in wages and a decrease in working hours (40 hours became the norm and still is), leading to increased disposable income which was spent on buying goods previously inaccessible to the worker. In fact, once unions appeared and began to oppose management, it is interesting to note that the consumer economy was able to be born. Mind you, not all the results of a consumer economy have been good, but the growth of the middle class has been a good thing. Teddy did not think that unions were automatically correct. In fact, he threatened to bust up at least one union. But, he believed that a short-sighted union opposed to a short-sighted management was more likely to produce a reasonable middle way that would enhance the market.
Frankly, I am surprised at the number of people who have never been union members, never known an union member, and never worked in an industry with union members who criticize unions and, despite the evidence before their eyes, cannot see that Theodore was correct in seeing unions as one of the vital balancing powers to management. Remember, he did not see either one as perfect. He saw both of them as short-sighted. Rather, he saw that the unbalanced power of management would lead to, uhm, just the type of conditions that we see in the workplace today. In fact, much of the criticism of unions and workplace regulation and government regulation, etc., since President Reagan has been based on the ideas that if only management were free of “excessive” workplace regulations, if only they were free of “excessive” taxes, if only they were free of “excessive” financial regulations, if only they . . . then a golden age of economic growth would come in which would raise everyone’s boat. What came in was a false golden age filled with Ponzi schemes and unsustainable deceptive profit-taking leading to a collapse that has severely damaged this country.
I could go on into various other economic areas, but I think this will give you an idea of my economic leanings.
Now, in all of this I have been talking only about the economy. However, as Christians, our view of the laws of a nation needs to encompass more than the economy.
===MORE TO COME===
Can I get an “Amen”?
Preach it, Father!
AMEN!
Once again, I will note that Teddy Roosevelt whom I greatly admire, was a very wealthy person from a very wealthy family and his views while commendable had little or no effect on his own life except for his conservation views with which I wholeheartedly agree.
I have never, nor would I ever, belong to a union but I have worked in an industry where open shops and unions both participated (electrical construction and repair).
The only real difference I saw were that the union members worked more slowly and did shoddy work. this was 30 years ago and I believe that the IBEW has seen the error of its ways and instituted programs in conjunction with open shops to elevate quality work for both.
I would agree that in the dreary setting of the 19Th century that the unions served a valuable purpose but I’m not sure that purpose is still being served.
Texas is an open shop state with no state income tax and low corporate taxes. One of the results has been unprecedented economic and population growth and even in these hard times that are exacerbated by the federal government we are still better off than most other areas of the country.
All having been said I would suppose that I am a ordoliberal capitalist (you have shown me the light) with strong leanings toward libertarianism.
I also have some leanings towards libertarianism, if only because I share the USA cultural tendency towards a saying that I heard from my father-in-law (may God rest his soul), a strong Christian man with a delightful sense of humor. He said that your personal rights ended at his property line. Libertarianism says something of the same, a leave me alone and I will leave you alone policy.
Unions, by the late 1970’s had become bloated. Some had become very corrupt. In fact, from the 1980’s on they have paid the price of their arrogance. But, as the pendulum has swung and they have nearly been wiped out, we have also seen the return of uncaring management. Even CNN recently put out a mocking T-shirt about how employees are forced to be “happy” at work or risk dismissal.
Many of today’s employee “meetings” in any of several industries are little more than pressure sessions that force one to act excited about the job, with the clear threat that if you do not “join the team” you will be gone and that complainers (regardless of how justified the complaint) are not truly team members. In this pressure-cooker atmosphere in which employers claims that they are only trying to build together a work team that is efficient and gets along, we little realize the psychological pressures we unnecessarily put on people.
having participated in some of those meetings I would agree.
Also, there has been a tendency with management to manage by fear and intimidation. Many employers today have read the latest business fad book of the week and concluded that employees are just assets or liabilities depending on the book that can be cast aside like an old truck or copying machine.
Once again dialogue has brought us to common ground.
As a former conservative, I recently realized why I always disliked unions. I saw their corruption and labor laws in many states that prohibited free labor of non-union workers. I now see unions as part of a free market. After all, every worker is free to associate and deal as a group. I don’t believe in laws that force somebody to become a union member to be employed, for such would not be a free market. I did not separate these bad things from the idea of a union itself.
I’m hearing now with the economy that corporations are offering buyouts that, if not accepted, will result in continuing employees having their workloads multiplied to the level of impossible. They can then fire the employees for not doing their jobs and avoid having to pay unemployment and other benefits. Nice guys, huh?
That behavior by management, of making work impossible, are the type of techniques best dealt by an union rather than by additional laws. Contracts are easier to modify and more flexible than laws. I am quite tired of hearing the complaint that some office worker could not change a light bulb because that required a janitor from the union. That tale has made the round so many times. It dates back to the 1970’s and that type of picayune behavior has been eliminated in almost all current contracts.
But, I notice that the tale is NOT being told of the management that deliberately overloads an employee in order to fire them for cause so that they do not have to pay compensation and/or unemployment. And, yet, I have met more than one person whose job was cut under those circumstances. One of them was a chanter at the last church at which I was.
The free market does not protect a person against that type of behavior by management. Either a law or an union contract protects a person against that type of behavior. Again, I prefer a union contract because it is more easily modifiable than a law.
As grandchild of a unionist, I am pretty favourable to Roosevelt. I may be a Fascist when it comes to unionists terrorising Italian farmers or raping Spanish nuns, but otherwise I am as unionist as Mussolini or Chesterton.
Or as a man loved and admired by both: Hoch Dollfuss!
(His confessor was Jesuit Fr. Ignaz Seipel who wrote Econom-Ethical Teachings of the Church Fathers)