The main reason why so many state and local governments are bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy, is the combination of government-run monopolies and government-employee unions. Government-employee unions have vastly more power than do private-sector unions because the entities they work for are typically monopolies. Their days are numbered. FULL ARTICLE by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15802/the-political-economy-of-government-employee-unions/
The Political Economy of Government Employee Unions
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>Their days are numbered.
I wouldn’t think so. Perusing the papers leads one to the conclusion that the day of the proletariat’s revolution has finally arrived. Strident calls for the “worker class” [what!] to rise up can be heard. Useful idiots that are not state-employed but actually think the recent “union actions” are their chance to make their voice heard are legion. It’s all rather sad.
Good stuff. I’ve been pulling my hair out recently over this issue. As Labor Unions cry out that the middle class is being assaulted, and that teachers and other public workers deserve more pay because what they do is important, I scream “supply and demand! It’s not that no one appreciates your work, its that your work is SIMPLE and requires little technical training and education!”. How simple of an economic matter this is.
The problem is, when one mentions the obvious lack of accountability politicians have in awarding Unions huge pensions and wages with taxpayers money to increase their support base and their campaign contributions, while simply pushing off the costs to later years to trick taxpayers and kick the can down the road, Union supporters, and consequently most Democrats, stick their fingers in their ears and yell “la-la-la not listening”, and than when you are finished pointing out the obvious ethical dilemma in this, they yell back that you hate “the children, the middle-class”, etc.
I think their true intentions came out when there were proclamations from the Unions that “the rich should pay their due”. It’s not about fair wages. It is about latching onto the State and sucking as much money out as possible.
They still haven’t addressed the real issue. When pension plans started people retired at age 65 and collected for 2 – 3 years. Now bureaucrats retire in their late fifties or early sixties and collect for 2 – 3 decades. Local governments cannot afford to pay and provide healthcare to people for 30 years after they retire, and that has not been addressed.
An interesting case to watch is what is going on in Prichard Alabama. After years of being warned that the pension fund would soon go broke, it finally did. They had a choice to make, they could either pay pensions to retirees and shut down virtually all government services, including emergency services or they could stop paying pensions. They chose to stop paying pensions.
It won’t be long before one of the big state pension funds runs dry and the day of reckoning finally arrives.
Sadly, they will just cry for a federal bailout, and probably get one. But, you are correct – sooner or later, the whole thing will collapse.
I saw a story on the Prichard, Alabama situation you mention. The saddest part to me is that all of the these people were led to believe that their government would be there for them in the form of a pension. This is the truly heartbreaking part of all this – the human suffering involved when the government can’t follow through on its lofty, unrealistic promises. “Proceeding ever more boldly against evil” is truly correct.
Pure projection on their part. It is the teacher’s union who hates kids.
Here’s what the teacher from Bucks County, PA calls her students:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/nation_world/20110217_Bucks_teacher_suspended_over_her_blog.html
http://www.trentonian.com/articles/2011/02/15/news/doc4d5ab396df1da873633793.txt
“rat-like”
“disengaged, lazy whiners”
“just generally annoying”
“My students are out of control,” Munroe, who has taught 10th, 11th and 12th grades, wrote in one post. “They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying.”
She also listed some comments she wished she could post on student evaluations, including:
“I hear the trash company is hiring”
“I called out sick a couple of days just to avoid your son”
“Just as bad as his sibling. Don’t you know how to raise kids?”
“Am concerned your kid is going to open fire on the school”
“I hate your kid”
She is not atypical of NEA members. I have a neighbor who is a public school teacher (needless to say I do not let my child(ren) play with her son). She says the same exact things about her students.
As if working an honest living removing trash is less honorable than the dishonest living of a school teacher, whose job could not survive without state mandate. At least people will voluntarily pay for trash removal.
““I hear the trash company is hiring””
Yes, the trash company needs strong workers with a strong stomach to picking that heavy disgusting teacher.
Such brutality and condescension from the part of teachers. Those kids are FORCED to attend school, FORCED to follow an imposed and unwanted cursus and FROCED to obey the commands of the teachers like dogs attending obedience school.
Students today understand that school is nothing but a domestication program that teaches obedience. They have a mind of their own, they have pride and dignity and of course they fight back.
Teachers want pets, not critical thinking kids who make their own minds. People were not meant to live in cages like we do with students.
School should be voluntary and the courses voluntary, that way, teachers and students could mutually agree with the terms, payments, courses to follow, program etc. I bet you would get a lot less attitude from both teachers and students.
I just hate the way teachers assume they are the masters and get offended when their slaves won’t cooperate perfectly.
There would still be teachers in a free market… they just wouldn’t get paid as much and the bad ones would be fired.
I believe in a free market there would be less teachers earning more because they would be more specialized, since education would be a means to an end and not an end in itself, like it is nowadays.
I have many friends who became school teachers, and they all say the same thing. It’s like they learned that kids are lazy in teaching school. I hear them say things like (ALL from just this past weekend):
“All I’m asking them to do is X. I mean really – IT’S NOT HARD.”
“They just sit there while I’m trying to teach them about X. Its like I’m not even talking.”
“There are good classes and bad classes. I like teaching grade Y. But grade Z is just so LAZY.”
“They just don’t care.”
“Parents don’t care what the kids are doing in school. Then they complain to me when their kids’ grades suck. I mean, HELLO! I’m trying to teach your kids here!”
Talk about an inflated sense of self-importance. And these aren’t even old-time school lifers, they’re young teachers with that new tenure smell. Even old friends from high school who now teach say these things. What the hell happened to these people? Do people just give up on life at some point? Is that what school teaching is, a last resort? It’s as if teachers take a Procrustean Oath to do unto the younger generation exactly what was done to them. But they call it “certification.”
I wonder why teachers never figure out the reason that kids are “lazy.” Bad parents? Not enough pay? The town voted down the budget? The administration is out to lunch? Honestly!
Why should kids pretend to care that your job is to show them a video or help them prepare for a State test? Why should a kid who isn’t ready for algebra worry that he wants to paint or study history instead? Why should one size fit all, teacher?
The fundamental problem: Kids are primarily in school to learn that they will be rewarded if they do what a certified authority tell them to. Young teachers should consider: who owns the brains in those heads? State Teacher or the Kid his/her self?
Schools have been as much about teaching conformity andn the need to obey as much as it was about actual real education. Government schools are a dumping ground for society’s unwanted youth. Stick them in there, discipline them, control them, make sure that they learn to obey while we adults go off and do more important things.
Plus a lot of these teachers, especially females, have no idea how to deal with the male students. Especially grade school. While females mature faster and have quite a bit more ability to sit still and listen, the males will be bouncing off the walls, playing with one another, and unable to pay attention or follow class instructions.
As a result more and more males are being drugged at a younger and younger age.
It’s really quite the disaster.
I’ve seen people in public bitching about their careers of being a teacher. “I paid for a 4 year degree, I have student loans, I deserve to get paid something like 75 or 100 thousand dollars a year like any other professional!”
These poor delusional fools.
In the war against the human mind, the public school teacher is the grunt.
They should get the same pay as an army private.
A lot of people have gone into teaching thinking it’s easy money, off on the summers. They’re surprised when they have to, you know, deal with kids. They’re taught in school to give worthless, meaningless assignments and to throw a fit when kids don’t do them. I work at a private school, teaching mostly the “bad” students – those who talk back and don’t do stupid assignments. I have to talk to them about things that interest them, and teach them things they want to learn. Crazy, I know.
Another issue is that, as the above comments show, the mentality of the public school classroom is creeping into the rest of the world. In the classroom, you’re rewarded for following directions – so people expect that the right degree gets you the pay automatically.
What? Those Bad Kids don’t respond well to the force-feed method? They have a will of their own? Unspeakable! No future for them!
I don’t know your exact circumstances, of course, in teaching the “bad” kids in a private school. But I am quite convinced that kids can better utilize their teachers when they and their parents are paying customers, and the teacher is an employee with genuine expertise. In other words, at the end of the day they need to work on behalf of the kids, and not the School Board, or No Child Left Behind, or an anonymous (and likely long since dead) bureaucratic expert. Public school offers, despite the best efforts of its best teachers, something more akin to an inmate vs. warden antagonism. They don’t want to be there, and teachers don’t want them there either.
As W. Edwards Deming said repeatedly of the nature of bad systems, “the best efforts of the best people are irrelevant.” And certainly irrelevant also are the best efforts of those who shouldn’t teach at all. Unfortunately, the latter makes up the bulk of the Teachers Union.
“The main reason why so many state and local governments are bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy, is the combination of government-run monopolies and government-employee unions.”
Right, it has *nothing* to do with the giant financial meltdown that just happened. Nothing whatsoever …
The economic bubble in the economy probably kept the states afloat longer then they would of otherwise been. When that burst (aka meltdown) it did create a tax crunch for the states. However this has been a very long time coming and it would of happened regardless of any sort of fluctuations in the market.
In other words… the reason it is happening _NOW_ is because of the “economic meltdown”. The reason it is happening _AT_ALL_ is because of the policies of the governments and the public unions. It would of happened eventually no matter what, unless the states got rid of their employees and the unions went kaput.
The bubble made the problem worse. It gave the states a false impression they could spend more even though the good times wouldn’t last.
Why are Libertarians jealous of union members? If Libertarian business principles don’t provide sufficient income then Libertarians can always organize a union in their shop.
How much does Prof. DiLorenzo rake in? It annoys me when public figures tell their audience how much 3rd parties should earn (are worth) without at least hinting their gross income.
There is a food chain in every economic system. There are ways to advance ones self in every economic system. Every economic system has winners and losers. If the complainers would work harder, smarter, or longer instead of wasting time harping about unions . . . .
Bill, at issue here are taxpayer funded unions. Libertarians are not jealous that somebody is free to make as much money as they are able to, as long as the money is made via voluntary exchange. That is a business. I pay if I want your service, and if I don’t want it I won’t pay. The customer is king here.
Government unions are nothing like that. You have no choice but to pay for their services, regardless of whether you use them or morally agree with them. All of the money for government union, and the wages of the union workers, is forcibly taken via taxation. You must work and pay – or go to jail. If we must be forced by law to pay the union workers, that’s not voluntary and is not a business, but a monopolistic protection racket. The need to force payment would also indicate that the services provided are substandard. Otherwise, why do you need the force?
Pointing out how Unions are responsible for destroying their own livelihoods, ruining entire industries in the USA (in collusion with government), and now how they are bankrupting the public institutions that they belong to is in no way is a indication of ‘Jealousy’.
To confuse ‘Pointing out Reality’ with ‘Jealousy’ points to a deeper flaw in your logic and judgement.
What is going to happen is that there will be no more Unions because there will be nobody left that can afford to hire them. They are a victim of their own political success.
If it was just a issue of negotiating between employers versus self organized groups of employees then that would be just 100% fine. But that is NOT what is happening. NOT AT ALL.
Wow, what ignorance. Do you have ANY idea what Libertarians stand for?
And you are calling Libertarian’s complainers???? Even when you see Unions going on strike, refusing to work and rallying across the nation???
What world do you live in? I am genuinely curious.
billwald thinks that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world, and the the market is a zero sum scenario. When you buy bread from the grocery store you loose and they win, says billwald, because thy got the bread for $0.50 less then you and it does not cost that much to put bread on a shelf. I have seen no evidence that he understands the concept of mutually beneficial exchange.
Unions are enabled by the Federal Reserve and our “money creation through debt” process.
Here’s how: If governments had to increase taxes to correspond with spending increases there would be a balance between union strikes and taxpayer revolts. The taxpayers would keep government spending in check at some level. The option governments have is debt. This defers tax consequences and rewards large union constituents. The reason governments have the debt option is because of how the Fed is allowed to invent money through the debt creation process. If this was not an option then governments would be forced to actually borrow money from savers which would ultimately drive up interest rates and discourage excessive borrowing. This doesn’t happen.
If governments had to borrow money from genuine savers our debt funded union compensation programs would not exist because spending would have a compensating control in taxpayers revolt and excessive interest rates.
If we end the Fed or their ability to invent debt, the Union issues will go away.
be
You are correct but it is in the interest of those in power to not raise our taxes overtly as this would make them unpopular to voters, etc. Of course our “taxes” are still being raised but it is done in a more gradual way so as not to be noticed by most people. It is through the process of monetary creation with no additional gold backing or manufacturing exports.
>”The bottom line is that Congress and the banking cartel have entered into a partnership in which the cartel has the privilege of collecting interest on money which it creates out of nothing, a perpetual override on every American dollar that exists in the world.
Congress, on the other hand, has access to unlimited funding without having to tell the voters their taxes are being raised through the process of inflation. If you understand this paragraph, you understand the Federal Reserve System.”
http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/jekyll.htm
This from a chapter of the book, “The Creature From Jekyll Island” (A Second Look at The Federal Reserve) by G. Edward Griffin
I wonder how many union symathizers have personal experience with unions? I do. I worked for a union contractor in construction in New York, was educated in the Yonkers public schools (which has one of the strongest teachers unions in the country) and dealt with union utility workers while improving subdivisions. Here are a few of my experiences.
In 1977 the Yonkers teachers went out on strike for 5 weeks at the start of school. Their dedication to the students was drawn into question by the scores on the statewide Regents exams in the spring. Here’s how the union construction business works. The union contractors sign an egregious deal with the unions that would be impossible for any start up to comply with, the union then gives concessions to their chosen contractors on staffing levels so the established contractors can bid the jobs with lower labor costs. The contractor pays off union leaders for looking the other way on the contract violations. The contractor gets the work, no competition, the unions get unbelievable wages and benefits and the taxpayer gets the shaft. Our union utility crew would install one gas service a day (2 men), despite the fact that this only took about 1 hour. The other “working hours” were spent sitting in the truck “in order to spread the work around”. The utility company could pay the wages due to their monopoly prices.
These are all factual accounts. I would be curious to hear defenses for this type of behavior and how society is benefitted.
I know a number of teachers in public schools who pay a good chunk of their salaries to have their own children in private schools. While I don’t approve of it, I understand quite well why they do it. The public schools are filled with alien cultures, many people without the slightest interest in getting an education, joining the civilized world, or the ability to do so even if they chose. Combat pay might be more appropriate.
There was a time however, when government employment was considered employment of last resort. For most of what government SHOULD be doing_if anything_that kind of employee was good enough. That all changed when we let them take on the job of micro-managing every aspect of our lives. Surely you want only the best and brightest to tell you how much water to use in your morning shower?
John, That is just an example not necessarily representitive of all workers and unions. Besides if the union is busted so to speak then the Republicans will have major control over American policy and most American workers pay and safety issues, etc. will be severely compromised. The wealth dispartiy in this country today is worse than it was in 1929. If big business and corporations domoinate more than they curently do already our situation today will rhyme with 1929-1939, etc.
The wealth disparity and the growth of government went hand in hand. There’s a connection. Big government is what causes wealth disparity growth, and unions go along with big government. Unions are few and far between without a government to support them.
Carl,
My examples are unfortunately pretty typical of highly unionized areas and industries. The problem with the state contractor/union example and DiLo’s public union example is that there is a win:win for the parties at the negotiating table at the expense of the taxpayer. If you read Kant and Mises you know all of our experiences shape our perspectives.
The bottom line is that Congress and the banking cartel have entered into a partnership in which the cartel has the privilege of collecting interest on money which it creates out of nothing, a perpetual override on every American dollar that exists in the world.
Congress, on the other hand, has access to unlimited funding without having to tell the voters their taxes are being raised through the process of inflation. If you understand this paragraph, you understand the Federal Reserve System.”
It is also most telling that 10 percent of Americans own 70% of wealth. The bottome 50% of US citizens control just a little over 2% of the wealth. I doubt that many in unions are in the top tier of wealth.
Wealth disparity is a major result of allowing Congress to regulate business and spend gobs of money. Who do you think gets access to the newly printed money? That’s a key reason behind the growing disparity. Unions are special beneficiaries of this policy. The members get the shaft, but the union leadership lives cushy lives. Good old Bob King gets a cushy salary from being the UAW president of $150k/year plus outlandish benefits for doing basically nothing. And I’m sure their golf courses aren’t doing badly, either.
Where is the evidence that “The main reason why so many state and local governments are bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy, is the combination of government-run monopolies and government-employee unions”? Just curious if there’s a study or some documentation?
Anyone?????
Excuse us for not being here to answer your question within 10 minutes.
Not trying to be rude, just thought someone could through a couple of links up justifying the basis for this statement.
Just google california and pensions. It’s the same story everywhere.
Depending on the news outlet it seems to always be skewed. That’s why i was hoping there is some kind of accounting document for the states that can be pointed to and you can say “see lines ### it shows xyz which is greater than lines ### (etc…), therefore we can conclude the main reason why so many state and local governments are bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy, is the combination of government-run monopolies and government-employee unions”
So …. why _are_ so many state and local governments bankrupt? How is that even possible in the first place?
What do they spend or intend to spend their money on? Why can’t they change things? It’s rather self-evident.
The red-herring answer of “taxes are too low” or “conservatives are destroying tax revenue” shall be elided.
DJJ,
There have been many articles or blogs across the Internet and the mainstream press about the pension problem, with plenty of charts and such to go with it. Around here the case has already been made long ago, it’s nothing new to people here. I hope this explains why at the moment there isn’t a link to a study or document. The regulars here who have seen chart after chart on this issue probably would find it tedious to link to a bunch of stuff for one person. That said, that’s DiLorenzo’s job. I agree that he should include a link like the one you’re asking for.
One blogger I follow in CA does a fairly good job documenting issues like this there.
http://roseysoutlook.blogspot.com But he’s just one of many. Like Anti-Gnostic said, search around some here or Google and you’ll find what you’re looking for.
DJJ,
You are getting very close to the crux of the problem with pension liabilities, social security, healthcare, et al. If one looks at the original estimates of the scale of the liabilities created it’s laughable how wrong these projections can be. Life expectancy, rate of return on investments, unforeseen conditions and circumstances arise and Poof!, your projections are worthless. Imagine if we had a major break through in extending lives next year, what then?
These programs are dreamed up by central planners that believe the future is knowable and static.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/business/23prichard.html
http://www.minyanville.com/businessmarkets/articles/mish-shedlock-prichard-alabama-prichard-municipal/12/23/2010/id/31865
The above are two articles about the pension fund in Prichard Alabama. The fund is broke and the town stopped sending pension checks to its retirees. This seems to be proof that pension funds are bankrupt or on the verge.
There are about half a dozen state pensions that will be out of money before the end of the decade, the worst is Illinois.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local-beat/illinois-pension-liability-84732772.html
These articles are pointing out that pension funds are out of money but how doe that translate to “the main reason why so many state and local governments are bankrupt, or on the verge of bankruptcy, is the combination of government-run monopolies and government-employee unions”? Do unfunded pension liabilities make up the largest portion of the deficits in these states?
Somebody already stated the problem further up. Read what he said, basically with or without a financial bubble bursting, the government pension obligations are impossible to obtain, it would require incredible demographic changes and economic boom like no other before it.
This goes for most of Europe as well.
Your opening hypothesis is wrong, Mr DiLorenzo. These scabrous conditions arise because the other negotiating party (usually either directly or indirectly a politician) has gone weak-kneed at the thought of seriously damaging their messiah complex by not being re-elected. Altruism is never a threat where self-interest is in play – it’s so much easier to give in, get re-elected and be the envy of lesser mortals. It doesn’t matter whether the union thinks you’re a great guy or a d***head, as long as you’re re-elected. I’d bet that both Walker and Christie, catching the mood of the nation as they have, think that their stances are the best way to a second term. We should all wipe our brow with relief in the knowledge that, should they win, it’ll be a salutory outcome as well.
Every government-employee union is a political machine that lobbies relentlessly for higher taxes, increased government spending, more featherbedding, and more pension promises – while demonizing hesitant taxpayers as uncaring enemies of children, the elderly, and the poor (who are purportedly “served” by the government bureaucrats the unions represent).
I’m sick of this tactic and it’s the primary reason I started thinking differently about unions, government “services”, etc., and hence my eventual reading of Mises and the Austrian school.
Re: problems related to “government-run monopolies and government-employee unions”
I’ll be more generic. The problem is related to government employees who make distinctly more than market rates would ever pay. That is a fact. I am a government employee in the technology field. I’m not motivated to leave my position. My compensation package and that of all my employees is greater than industry rates…which is even unbelievable to me. My team supports SAP Software applications so most of us could work anywhere in the world…but we don’t. We stay here because the benefits are almost unbeatable. It’s embarassing and I know, one day it will all meltdown and we’ll be looking for work. I am excited about that day…until it comes, we ride this wave of over-compensation. It’s sad…but true.
ps. I’m not a union member, but our union members get 240 hrs or sick time per/year.
I know a girl who worked at the local library. She quit and went to work for the USPS. A few months later she told me ” I’m making twice the money for half the work.” The situation which exists now has always been led by the federal government.
Those jobs are gonna go bye-bye, too. I’m to the point where I no longer need a mailbox as I do everything online.
That doesn’t mean you will stop paying for a mailbox… or that people will not be paid to deliver things to your non-existent mailbox.
N/A, I’ve been a federal employee, on both sides of union/non-union. Decided to enter private industry, left my really nice job at federal. Each of us chooses and abides by our choice. I didn’t choose to stay on the federal payroll and also enter private industry as I thought that would be a conflict of interest on my part; taking my salary from those who pay taxes while competing against them for private contracts. I have discussed this issue with one of the attorneys from the attorney general’s office in my state and she said there was no conflict with public servants having their own private business competing on the open market. Enjoy your career position, if you have a side business, make good in that area also.
Mr.Dilorenzo’s article is spot on. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Unless we could have a Constitutional Amendment outlawing all Public Schools and State Universities plus an Amendment that forbids government employees from voting in the political district they are employed in (both amendments not very likely). I’m afraid that liberty minded people have to wait until the economic consequences of fiscally unsound political entities bankrupt themselves and force the issue. As an added note,I have noticed on other Libertarian and Conservative internet sites an extremely large input by Trolls who are trying to either discredit or interrupt civil discussions on the subject of government employee unions. For those who don’t know who trolls are,just google the word for an explanation. There is nothing wrong with presenting different points of views,as long as it is kept civil.
I’m skeptical about Federal Constitutional amendments, since we don’t follow it anyway. But at the state level it might work. Why not just this:
1) Legalize competition (ie, no barriers to entry, certification, etc). The state does not need to know how parents are providing for their children. Parents do not have to use public schools. Period.
2) Pay for what you use. Parents that use public schools pay the cost however the state sees fit. People who are not using the schools use their income to provide other options. For example, some or all of the following: homeschooling, private school, tutoring, private lessons, real world experience, online college courses … as well as all the many options I didn’t think of.
Just legalize choice. People need to have a chance to see which option is the most bang for the buck, and most people just think school is an irreversible fact of life. If public school and teachers are so good, people will choose it. If not, then they won’t. Allow market choice, rather than abolishing or mandating anything. Freedom can win the day due to simple obsolescence of State functions. And if libertarians are wrong and the State is, in fact, the Better Man, then it will win and we’ll eat crow. I’ll happily place my bet with freedom.
By all means, let’s take away the voting rights of a select group of American citizens. Then, all of the privileges that the Supreme Court has granted corporate america and this countries billionaires will make ever more sense.
Yeah, its really pro-liberty to strip government employees of their voting rights because of where they work.
These self-important teachers will get theirs as top flight k-12 ciriculums will be soon available online, making MOST of the education infrastructure obsolete.
Gary North elaborates in this excellent interview with Lew Rockwell.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north874.html
God bless the internet. The absence of IP laws and the internet together would skyrocket the revolution.
I love when gloom-and-doom theories and news articles are cut down by technology and innovation, still showing that innovation and open minds can always find ways around the most stubborn bureaucracies.
In other words, it’s time to destroy the internet.
Put a kill switch on it, will you? And don’t forget to tack on some net neutrality web 2.0 baloney
USA #0! USA #0!
Bring on the digital revolutions!
It is not the Unions that are creating the State budget problems – it is healthcare benefits and retirement benefits being paid by the employer, rather than the employee just receiving it as salary and paying for the benefit themselves. Most people have seen their health insurance premiums rise by 30%. However, teachers have all their healthcare benefits paid by the employer, so the employer gets to eat the costs of Obamacare. The same with defined benefit plans – they should be replaced with defined contributions. That way the employee owns what has been paid into the pension fund. This is a prime example of how the tax code produces economic distortions.
Tax feeders on strike in my town last year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bJZKuxGMZc
You would be amazed at the actual cost of providing lifetime pensions to those who retire at the age of 50 (typical for police and fire fighter). If these pensions where funded out of the paychecks of the employees themselves it would require a deduction of about 75%!!! Yet in most cases the employees pay nothing. And if the employee does contribute to his own pension by law the employer can not deduct more than 8%. And don’t forget if the employee dies the pension is then collected by the spouse.
The answer is to convert over to 401Ks like in the private sector. Allow the employee to contribute up to 10% which will be matched by the employer. This caps the pension costs at 10% of gross wages instead of the 65-75% that is being paid now.
It really doesn’t matter whether it is the employee or the employer putting money in, since ultimately, it is the employer whom pays the employee.
Immoral Collectivist Force By Government Unions.
The monopolist government sectors (trash collection, public education, judicial system, etc.) have on their side the monopolistic judicial system. Can a conflict of interest be any more blatant?
Combine that with the protection of the union thugs and their mindless dependents from any interference from ‘law’ enforcers; since they too are just a part of the extortion racket. The socialist parasites enjoying the monopolistic power of the State are ready to use immoral collectivistic force to try to preserve their socialistic way of life.
Economic equilibrium will soon make their claims ridiculous and will overwhelm the puny (on the day of reckoning) ‘power’ of the State.
A bit late in the day to comment but this article is plain wrong.
The reason why the public service unions have become so strong is because the politicians are so weak. They are weak because they have nothing to protect by resisting union pressure and everything to gain from giving in.
Businesses have a reverse profile because they have profits to protect and giving in to the demands of unions will often mean actually losing their jobs.
This is the best of all reasons why we should never allow politicians to do anything. They were originally appointed as administrators and our error was to allow them to expand their job description in the first place
Exactly, the problem here is with the people who are negotiating with the unions, not the unions themselves! For those in favor of stripping unions of their collective bargaining rights (as the governor of Wisconsin is attempting to do), go reread the first amendment.
This article is written by a professor? Where is the research? You can’t point to studies done thirty years ago by a single person, and then just say that since that time “that wage premium has likely increased”. How do you know this? Why should anyone believe you?
You can’t make a claim like “For decades, researchers have noted that the more money that is spent per pupil in the government schools, the worse is the performance of the students” without pointing to a least one or two actual studies.
This entire piece is simply a parade of opinions, with nothing to substantiate its dubious claims. I give it an “F”.
You do realize that actual research into the specifics of this subject are impossible, right? What is being used are well-established laws of economic laws on monopolies and non-voluntary consumption being extrapolated into the public sector union. To properly research this subject, we have to actively ban public unions and governments to gain a proper base-line of comparison. Without a control group, studies are worthless, and to generate a control group, we have to actively dismantle government to get the evidence.
As I mention, the author has claimed that “for decades” the research has demonstrated that the more money that is spent, the worse the students perform. But the author doesn’t actually cite a single example of this research. Why not?
Or take this sentence; “in the vast literature showing the superior efficiency of private versus government enterprises, government almost always has higher labor costs for the same functions.” What is an example of this vast literature? Is there really no body of literature showing the opposite?
There are plenty of opportunities for studies and research in this area. Unfortunately this author does not provide us with citations, or concrete anecdotal evidence, or really evidence of any kind of all, and therefore does not provide us with actual information. Its just a bunch of unsubstantiated opinions. I’d think a professor could do better.
You cannot expect of a blog post the same kind of rigour you’d expect of a scholarly article.
Nevertheless, your point is taken, and a few citations would do this article good.
@Ken,
Try looking at the schools in the District of Columbia. They normally have the highest funding per student and the lowest scores. It isn’t very hard to find out this information. Just go on your computer and ask the right question at Google.
Otherwise just look around you and use common sense and it will hit you in the face.
>billwald thinks that there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world, and the the market
is a zero sum scenario.
Not exactly. I think a rising tide does not raise all boats if the anchor chain on some boats is to short. A large anchor and a short chain will sink a small boat.
Do you think that a person with a billion dollars in liquid assets wants more money to buy more consumer goods? He wants more power over the guy with only a half billion in liquid assets. In other words, there seems to be a fixed amount of political/economic power in the world. As our owners gain power the working class loses power.
Where do you think the capital to start a business, that produces and sells the consumer goods, and employs the working class, comes from?
You might like this short text:
http://mises.org/resources/3793/Inclined-To-Liberty-The-Futile-Attempt-to-Suppress-the-Human-Spirit
Are state and local workers the new fat cats? Is public sector pay out of line? http://tinyurl.com/5vhp4vy
The “person with a billion dollars” does not have a billion dollars worth of gold sitting in his basement. He has the vast majority of his money invested in companies that are producing things that people want… in what way does BIll Gates’ billion dollars give him power over me? He can’t take my house. He can’t take my car. He can’t stop me from buying food, or using the internet… he can’t even stop me from using his software.
I can see the sense in which there is a fixed amount of political power, in that one person gaining power necessarily means that another person loses it, but this is not the case for economic power.
Rather than look a poverty as inequality why not look at poverty as an issue of access to physical resources. The vast majority of the “poor” in the West today has more access to goods of all sorts than 95% of the population had access to for 99% of humanity’s existence. One hour’s work at minimum wage buys enough potatoes at harvest time to supply a family’s caloric needs for a month (I have seen 50lb bags for $1.99 as little as 2 years ago). If that is not “economic power” I don’t know what is.
The funny thing about billionaires is that, no matter what they do, they can never find $1 billion in cash to spend. You’d be surprised that there are quite a few people who are millionaires if we use the same standards of valuation for everyday folks. A billionaire is estimated based on total asset holdings. If you count up all the things you own and apply a market-price valuation to all of them, you’ll be a lot “wealthier” than your paycheck shows.
While Libya is in the news, we should remember Bunker Hunt. At one time J. Paul Getty was the world’s richest man. However, when questioned on this, he disagreed, or at least offered the following comment – Bunker Hunt is the worlds richest man – he has $3 billion in cash. (This was back in the days when the dollar was actually worth something).
http://www.drs.wa.gov/administration/annual-report/safr/safr2009.pdf
My LEOFF1 pension was doing fine until the state quit making the required annual contributions and stole money from the fund. It is still in fair shape.
I don’t think you get it. The state employees did not suck up the budget. Walker gave our money to the Koch brothers and their ilk. I live from pay check to pay check and never get ahead. Worse still are those who make less than $20,000.00/year. What are they going to do? If I were working in the private sector, I would make ten times what I make for the state, but I’m 67–it’s too late to think of that. I teach because I love it, but I can’t live on air.
Libertarians, where is your outrage regarding the fidelity to contracts?
The problem is that a contract with the government is a contract to take someone else’s money.
The “free” education provided by the government causes lots of problems for libertarian teachers… a person who loves teaching has much less of a chance to find a job in private sector due to the government displacing private schools. This often leaves libertarians with a choice between working for the government or leaving the field that they love.
I agree completely because I have been in the situation for 26 years. I’m not bored with my job, I don’t hate my students, and I have provided the services that have been asked of me by my local school board. And in conjunction with that I have (albeit through a collective bargaining unit) fulfilled my obligation in our contractual agreement. But for many of the posters and even the author of the original article that does not seem to be a matter of concern even though a basic tenant of Libertarianism is contract fidelity. They all collectively (at least the ones that seem to really have bad opinions about teachers) believe that those contracts should be ignored. Very disappointing.
The contracts in existence should be honored. In our state (New Jersey) money was “borrowed” from the pension funds over thirty years ago, and has been “borrowed from” since. Some say that is done with, nothing we can do, and let’s just deal with reality; there is no money left in the pension fund. It seems there really is no accountability on the part of the state. The state needs to honor the existing contracts as best they can given the funding problem as it exists. There should be a cut-off date, perhaps the next renewal date for a public servants contracts, at which time new “rules” for employment with the state will indicate the conditions of employment, those who wish to work under the new “conditions of employment” will do so, the others will seek work elsewhere. As for the people who authorized “borrowing” pension funds, and those who continued “borrowing” these funds, should at least be “outted” for their contribution to our dilemma. I’m almost positive that nothing can be done legally to them, they will continue in their private practices, or appointments to cabinets, etc.
The problem is that there isn’t a valid contract since those who are expected to make good on the contract were given no opportunity to negotiate or agree to it. The contract is with an entity whose sole source of funding is theft. It’s no more absurd than going after the shopkeeper who was paying “protection” money to the local gang to make good on a deal made with the gang.
Come on now, really? I’m willing to give in on many of the points made about the excesses of union demands, but looking at the history of our country public education was established by the Northwest Ordinance under the Articles of Confederation (which by the way was much more Libertarian minded than our Constitution is) and has always been deemed a priority within our society. The people that have voted leaders into office nation wide for two centuries have condoned and supported the idea of public education throughout. If you deny that then that is as much revisionist history as anything Howard Zinn ever wrote. I was always of the understanding that Libertarianism was for “limited” government, not no government. That sounds much more like anarchy to me.
This is an honest question: are you really trying to make a claim that state-controlled, taxpayer funded education is somehow libertarian?
@ Jim P. no I am aware of Mises’ beliefs about public education, but I was directing those comments towards J. Murray’s statement that “there isn’t a valid contract”. The validity of a contract is not if a person philosophically agrees with it or not, the validity comes from the reality of how the contract was made. My comment is based on establishing the historicity of how these contracts have come about and that to just abandon them to the expediency of this philosophy seems to be contrary to most writings that I have seen on this web site. For example:
“The institution of contract is widespread. Contracts are used in a
variety of situations, from simple barter to complex exchanges such as
loans and employment contracts. A contract is a relation between two
or more parties which includes legally enforceable obligations between
them. Contracts result from agreement between parties to exchange
promises or performance, e.g., one party promises to do (or not do)
something, or to give (or not give) some thing to the other party.” ~
A LIBERTARIAN THEORY OF CONTRACT: TITLE TRANSFER, BINDING PROMISES,
AND INALIENABILITY N. Stephan Kinsell
I just picked this one at random, but I’m pretty sure that contracts are seen as sacrosanct by most Libertarians. And so my original point is still that this tenant is being devalued.
Again, I can agree to much of what I’ve seen on this website and I’m sure that there is a factor of “now it’s happening to me”, but the comments on here are so mean spirited that is does get my back up because I believe their is a tremendous amount of selectivity of ideology going on in many of these posts.
I think the major area of difference here is that a contract between one government agency and another contains a problem that supersedes libertarian ideas on contracts. Please forgive the expression here, I mean no insult, but to a libertarian this is like “honor among thieves.” The problem is, in a very basic way, that this contract between the State Union and the State is not like a contact between Jim and LibertarianTeacher (ie, You). If you and I sign an agreement, we pay out of our own pockets and our very word is on the line here (or, in some circles, credit). You and I pay with our own money and other assets. If we do not honor our agreement, one of us is a liar or a bad risk. When the State Union and the State sign a contract, they don’t put the Courthouse up as collateral. They put you and I on the line. This is not the same thing as a voluntary contract. Bottom line: I didn’t sign any contract with your Union or the State. But I am accountable anyway for what they do. You, as a teacher: how on earth am I, and my future generations, responsible for your contract?
No matter what, I must pay. All misdeeds of those two parties, through no fault of my own, end up being the responsibility of myself and of my children. I was born into that arrangement, and my kids as well. I never agreed to it, nor would I. How did I become a party to this? By what notion of property rights can I be accountable for what others do? Only the notion that the State, ultimately, owns its subjects, as far as I can see.
Libertarians do tend to take contracts very seriously, because they are voluntary and civil arrangements between parties and individuals. It is a personal promise. Almost a marriage. But what we have with a government union and the state is not the same thing as You and Me. It is two abstractions, pretending to act on our behalf. If I wanted them to act on my behalf, I would have paid them to do it as a customer, not as (no hyperbole intended) a serf.
The Articles of Confederacy don’t come into the equation. I’m saying that I, who is expected to pay for the teaching salaries, never came to the agreement to pay them. There is no sanctity of contract because at no point did I ever sign one. Therefore, any resources that come out of my pocket for the funding of a state union employee is illegitimate because I would never sign a contract to provide a pension, the inflated pay, or the benefits as I find them unreasonable.
The value of teaching isn’t even part of the discussion. I’m sure you’d be able to make a bit more money and provide a cheaper service to your students if your organization wasn’t laden with non-productive assets like principles, school boards, superintendents, and departments of education at both the State and Federal level.
J. Murray,
“There is no sanctity of contract because at no point did I ever sign one.”
See, this is the part that always confuses me. Why can’t you acknowledge the simple fact that you constructively signed this contract throug your legitimately authorized representative governmental agent? That is a very hard pill to swallow, it appears.
If you don’t use discipline and teach your kids manners and morality, do you absolve yourself for any responsibilities for parenthood when they drop off the deep end? It seems to me there is a connection there that one should take responsibility for.
Can you see my point there?
Okay, I’ll give you the first point but it is the reality that we leave with. Publicly funded education goes back to Franklin and even the most adamant Libertarian believes in the benefit of an educated society.
And I am in complete agreement with the second part of your statement. I am someone that loves teaching, have done it for 26 years in the public schools, I don’t hate my students, and I have bargained in good faith with our local school board (albeit via a collective bargaining unit) a contract that includes a pension that I contribute to and so does my local school board. To read this blog that contract is inconsequential. I just expected more from people that subscribe to the principles of Libertarianism.
“Publicly funded education goes back to Franklin and even the most adamant Libertarian believes in the benefit of an educated society.”
You’ve conflated ‘publicly funded education’ with ‘educated society’, allowing me to use the verb ‘to conflate’ for the first time ever, yay! Did I get it right?
Congratulations on conflation! Also, indeed, that’s the problem in a nutshell there. You’d first need to ask whether government schools create an educated society. Do government schools even achieve that goal? I’d argue that they do not. Interestingly there, Benjamin Franklin was largely self-educated and trained “on the job.”
Secondly, even if you felt that government schools *do* create an educated society, you’d have to show that their forcible monopoly is justified, and that no better or equal (and more peaceful) alternative existed that did not require a monopoly: ie, private school, homeschooling, work, etc. If government schooling is the best, then let it compete and prove it. If it is not the best, then why should we continue with it?
The answer, I fear, is that schools are a unionized jobs project and a protection racket for preserving those jobs first and foremost. Teaching is only the secondary objective of this system. This is not a criticism of teachers as human beings. I do sympathize with “Libertarian Teacher” and I wish him no ill will, just like with my multitude (20-ish) of school teacher friends. They’re good people. They care about their jobs and they work hard. They believe in what they are doing. They justify their status-quo jobs a million ways to Sunday. But the best teachers with the best intentions and the best ideas cannot change the fact that they are in a bad system. Bad systems negate all best efforts. You are stuck in a bad system that limits your best efforts. You are stuck in a system that produces more bads than goods.
Most of the pension obligations that were undertaken by the state and local governments were done so before I was born and before I was able to vote. As I see it people from a previous generation agreed to pay pensions to the public sector unions out of my pockets before I existed and before I was “granted” the right to object to them agreeing to spend my money for me. Any other contract that involved taking my future earnings despite my utter lack of involvement in the process would be declared void, but because it was undertaken by politicians elected by my parents’ peers I now am on the hook to pay pensions that simply cannot be fulfilled.
I sympathize with people who expected that they would be getting pension checks for the last 20-40 years of their lives and now find out that that can’t happen, but I do not want to subject my future children to a world where they are required to pay the majority of their wages to support the retired public employees. If the public employees feel they got a raw deal they should be mad at the politicians that lied to them decades ago, not at the people that point out that the politicians lied.
“The problem is that there isn’t a valid contract since those who are expected to make
good on the contract were given no opportunity to negotiate or agree to it.”
I never contracted to pay for foreign wars, for the freeways, for the libraries, nor for anything else but as long as I live in the US the civil contract of this nation requires me to pay my taxes. If I don’t like it I can always leave.
If I don’t like it I can always leave.
Yes? And go where? No country in the world grants automatic residence rights (I hear a few islands in the Caribbean will let you stay if you invest a few hundred thousands there, though).
Exactly what is a “civil contract” and when did I sign that thing?
” (I hear a
few islands in the Caribbean will let you stay if you invest a few hundred thousands
there, though)”
I think I have enough to buy my way into Canada as a landed immigrant
You would trade one “social contract” for another? Canada is no picnic either. All those little islands have their own games to play too.
Saying that you can “always leave” is saying that the government has the ultimate right to you and your property. It means that when push comes to shove, the State is right and always wins. Government is an abstraction, a brainless, soulless machine. Like any group, it does not think or reason, or have morals or goals. But individual humans do. Fact: Bill Wald is more important than the US government. To say otherwise is saying that, in this “free society,” citizens exist to serve government, and not the other way around. It is saying that the majority of politicians can screw you any way that it sees fit, because it is bigger than the minority. What part of this is civilization? This machine uses the people. We are not a singular body of people, but 300 million individuals.
Again, you’ve essentially stated the basic libertarian argument. You are forced to pay for things you never wanted or asked for, but were born into the bondage of: freeways, wars, etc. The government does things beyond your control. Who is responsible for those things: you or the abstraction that is government? You, or transient politicians? You, under duress, can choose a different government at great peril, great cost, and great lost time, life, and fortune. But you’re just buying another leash holder.
I haven’t checked if this is an authentic quote, nevertheless, it sums up nicely what this is about:
“To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” – Thomas Jefferson
The few teachers that took those jobs despite the unions, so that they might be a light in the darkness are compelled to send in their union dues to support democrat candidates. And all taxpayers are compelled to send our funds in so that primarily collectivist teachers can tell the students their side.
He’s got a pretty good handle on the subject. I wonder how many of those government employees also have a “side” business, using their benefits package to compete unfairly with private business. Could it be argued that this practice be considered a conflict of interest ?
@ Jim P. (sorry there was no reply directly under your last response to me)
I appreciate your argument, but don’t you realize that what you are saying is that history doesn’t matter? You want to inherit the wealth of your ancestors, but not their debts. There is no reset button on history and for good or bad your choices have impact on the future the outcome of which you have no way of knowing. So your solution seems to be to right a former injustice with a new injustice. How do you possibly see that as ethical behavior?
By injustice I assume that you mean not honoring contracts between the Teachers Union and the State. The two of those bodies can honor their contracts all they would like to. But also let them honor it without bankrupting me or my children. Again, why am I a party to it?
If I got together with my neighbor and signed a contract that said “We’re going to pave the road every year,” but in that contract designated a neighbor on another road to pay for it, is our contract legitimate? Should the distant neighbor, who never signed anything, who doesn’t use our road, be made to pay just because me and my buddy want to honor our agreement with each other? I threaten him a little, just to let him know I mean business. It’s not extortion because we have a contract.
And further, what if such a contract existed, and my distant neighbor got fed up and moved away. A new guy moves into his house. My buddy and I then go explain our contract with the new neighbor, and tell him that we’ll just send him a bill for our road. He’ll understand though, if he’s a good libertarian, because good or bad, that’s history and that’s the world we live in. Sorry, new guy – but we have to preserve justice.
Essentially I am asserting my view that citizens not be milked to honor *your* contract, which is exactly what you call “righting a former injustice with a new injustice.” Another example, should a slave remain a slave simply because of historical precedent, whether right or wrong, because the slave owner bought him fair and square? That was a deal between the owner and the trader. I ask not to exaggerate or liken myself as a taxpayer to a southern slave, but because the answer seems obvious. Of course the slave is not held by that contract. The slave has a life of his own that supersedes the contract, and he never agreed to this. But the same ethical problem applies to your contract. Citizens are not a party to your contract, except that the state extracts money from them to honor its deals gone sour. Also paying are the children themselves, made to spend their formative years with you guys so we can keep it all going, then again when they buy houses and have kids of their own. Frankly, I’m more worried about my own children and my own income than supporting your pension.
The State worker issues strike me as a little silly. The world does not owe State employees a living. I do not owe you a living. If I won’t row your boat to shore, you would rather sink the whole boat than have to row yourself. I call that entitlement.
You do not owe state workers a living as in “here don’t do anything for this free money that I will begrudgingly give you only at the threat of state violence being perpetrated against me.” But yes when a duly elected body of official representatives in a democratically elected government under a Constitution strictly adhered to (even if that is a stretch) contracts with me to provide services and I fulfill that contract with fidelity I’m being “silly” to have an expectation of reciprocal fidelity? I again question the ethics of that stance. Your examples reiterate your your original point, but they do not address my question of how cavalierly you and the people of this thread want to dismiss the validity of this contract.
I was drawn to Libertarianism basically because I thought it to be an ethical philosophy. In theory I still think it is, but if practitioners and apologists believe that it is ethical to just wipe away valid contracts then I’m not seeing much difference ethical speaking from you and a Marxian justification for the seizure of property for the good of all.
I understand what you are saying – you are doing your job, probably a good one, and you expect to get paid. Look back up through about the Pritchard, AL case. Public workers discarded at the ends of their lives, not getting the pension they promised. This is what happens when the government runs the system – a lot of broken promises. In a free market system, these types of situations (which will become all too common as time goes on – social security, medicare, etc., all will go broke and give out nothing to those who paid in) would be minimized.
Unless you’re GM and “too big to fail”.
Until the federal government finally goes insolvent, too
You keep avoiding this issue:
It is not my contract. It is yours.
You, the Union and the State, both wrote checks that you couldn’t really cash. Now reap what you’ve sown. Take responsibility for your own contracts. Don’t tell me that it’s my problem now, because teachers were promised ever more and they don’t care how they get it. I’m not living here to fulfill your contract anyway when one party defaults. I am not your bailout. This is your problem.
You are asking the citizens to be responsible now for your unsustainable entitlement contracts. You shirk your own responsibility, pass it on to innocent parties, and call it libertarianism. It makes no sense at all.
And Marxian? Really? You, the State worker, bent on getting somebody, anybody, to bailout his entitlements, are claiming that *others* are advocating property seizure?
@Jim P. February 27, 2011 at 12:36 pm
“You keep avoiding this issue:
It is not my contract. It is yours.”
I regret I did not lend my support to LibertarianTeacher sooner. It is you who is avoiding the issue. The issue is what responsibility YOU have for what we find around us, including LT’s problems.
You are responsible for this contract in no small or purely figurative way. It is the shameless absolving yourself on moral grounds of any responsibility for the situation being described here that is so objectionable.
Assuming you are a US citizen, then you are completely responsible for the fact that education is public, that teachers are unionized, and that your politicians robbed the treasury to buy political favors, including giving back to the unions so the whole corrupt mess can continue to fester. If you think that is wrong, then you have a moral obligation to do something about it. If you haven’t, then you have absolutely no moral high-ground from which to judge others.
“Now reap what you’ve sown.”
Exactly. Do you think you are above your own advice? Your complacency, and the citizen’s complacency in general, are DIRECTLY responsible for what is happening here.
“This is your problem.”
This “to each his own” attitude you exemplify is exactly why the anarchist branch of the libertarian philosophy is so ineffective and irrelevant. You belong to nothing and to no one in any sense greater than your own immediate family, etc. It is this attitude that allows you to absolve yourself of responsibility that permits you to feel moral superiority over the suffering of others. Do you really need to believe that this teacher had malicious intentions against fellow citizens, and therefore whatever happens is fair game, especially when you find yourself insulated from this particular problem?
“You are asking the citizens to be responsible now for your unsustainable entitlement contracts.”
LT is asking that s/he not get screwed by the system. S/he played by the rules. If you don’t like the rules, change them. They need changing. But don’t think for a minute that you are free of responsibility, and someone else will come along and clean up the mess. We will clean up the mess, or we won’t. Either way, there will be suffering and you are not immune, even though you may take comfort in the thought that you are, for now.
“And Marxian? Really?”
LT has a valid point. Taking from some to give to others, “from each according to their ability and to each according to their need” has some similarities to your apparent viewpoint. The distinction is that a Marxist puts the role of deciding in the hands of the State, while you place it on the individual, as if each is a man alone on a desert island.
This is not a concept of libertarian society that I believe in or envision, nor should we. Society means cooperation. That means establishing common goals and working together to achieve them. You are not a part of that vision, in my estimation.
That is the issue.
@Libertarian Teacher,
First of all I don’t believe any union public school teacher can be a true Libertarian. If these teachers had any common sense they would realize that all the monies paid to them is taken from taxpayers. There are taxpayers like myself that have paid property taxes for years to support the schools/teachers and I have no children but I have to pay anyway. So what do you think of that contract between me and the state? As for contracts look at what Obama did to the bond holders of General Motors. That was a debt contract that was not honored.
I really think you need to re-think your world view. It is definately not Libertarian. You sound like a RINO republican working in a liberal profession controlled by all the socialists. I hope you re-read Libertarian literature and find out where you went astray. Having a public education system is so far from Libertarian it does not compute. You want the force of the state to tell people they have to educate their children? What is so Libertarian about that? So get off the contract band wagon and look at the bigger picture.
My apologies if my stance seems too harsh. I think that the public sector tends to feel indispensable and entitled, no matter what harm it causes. I have only a reserved sympathy for those public workers who are beginning to see economic reality. Virtually all of them meant well. But they took those jobs for the security and comfort they provided, because ultimately they can be preserved with State force, and that makes them secure. They knew that one way or another, they were going to stay. Calling compulsion a “libertarian” principle gives you some serious ideological hurdles to leap.
Imagine this scenario:
I, a private businessman, am hiring recent college graduates. Imagine that I told you that I’d hire you as a 24 year old with no experience and no real expertise on anything. I’d give you the whole summer off and other long vacations. I would give you great benefits and ever increasing pay, and you can do the same work over and over again, rarely changing, year after year. I’ll also pay some of your student loan debt. Maybe we can send you off to a local college for your masters degree too. There is no such thing as a pay cut. Our business never slows down. If you get sick, we will hire a temp to cover for you.
And best of all – after a few years, if you keep your head down, I CAN’T FIRE YOU. This job will last forever, and you get a fat pension long after you’ve retired. You won’t get rich, but it is very safe. This job will never end.
You might think that, as a private business, this is not truly carved in stone. In fact, it sounds more like a scam. What if we get bought by another company? What happens if my great offer of permanent comfort and job security causes the business to fail, by taking on too many unsustainable liabilities? No company’s jobs are truly secure. Businesses fail all the time.
But look, you took exactly that same deal because you knew it was with the State. The State can’t fail. And in the end the State’s might will make it all right. One way or another, the State can make your dreams of unearned security and comfort come true. Even if it means stripping others of their own comfort and security to get it. Hey, it’s not perfect, but that’s how our Republic works, and sometimes a wink and a little graft is the price of civil society. They play for the wrong team, anyway.
Admit it: You want to keep your job until you retire at all cost, even if it does more harm than good to others. You want to forever increase your pay and benefits. And you want it all after you retire too. Admit that you don’t really care who pays or how you get it. Somebody, anybody, had better bail out this contract, and it’s not gonna be the Teachers. Admit that we desperately need you to teach our children, no matter what it takes.
Sounds like something we’d all like to have. But remember, the difference is that the police will drop your customers off at the door if they have to. They won’t do that for me. Ultimately, that’s why you took the job. There is nothing “libertarian” about that. You can’t reconcile forcible compliance with “the contract made me do it.”
I, for one, am tired of hearing that for opposing public unions that I am somehow jealous. Perhaps they are jealous that I make decent money without needing a union, and don’t need government force to keep employment. If my company does not give me compensation that I feel I deserve, I will find a new one that does. I do not need to rally in the streets and scream about government to do it, screaming about how I’m entitled to it.
I wonder how many who have the rallying cry of “raise taxes on corporations to pay for my entitlements!” also have their own small corporations on the side. If politicians can be scrutinized for conflict of interest, why can’t public employees?
Okay this will be my final post on this thread because I’m not able to adequately get my point made. I have understood your position from beginning to end. You philosophically do not agree with government coercion, public schools, unions, or paying for debts that you did not personally incur. I’m not dense and just reiterating the same arguments over and again does not further your position. I’m sure that you’re about to start typing in all caps. But if you read my original post (and all subsequent posts of mine afterwards) the only thing that I have questioned is how your philosophical objection trumps the legal, historical, democratic, and most importantly to me, ethical validity of these contracts?
Since Joe is starting to question my own personal beliefs and Jim is now telling me my motivation for taking my job this is going a direction that breaks down rather fast away from a debate to something that I will not participate in.
@Libertarian Teacher February 27, 2011 at 1:54 pm
I have been following this thread and want to offer a small comment.
It is easier for people who are not affected by the consequences, at least in a significant, life-altering way, to cast judgments on other’s situation from a moral high-ground. This is unfair.
Your situation is similar to that of social security. If I have been paying into SS for 45 years, and at this point in my life my options for preparation for retirement are limited, would it be fair or morally right to say to me “Tough. I didn’t agree to the SS system, so you are on your own.”? No. I paid money into a system that was promised to provide me with a income stream if I reached a certain age. I have a right to that promise. I made a deal which others depended upon, and I fulfilled my end of the bargain.
For whatever reasons, your decision to remain in teaching was, at least in part, based on the economic calculation of the situation as you understood it. The fact that one of the parties to the contract (state) made deals that it can’t afford to perform, does not make you morally responsible for taking the deal that was offered. You have a claim to performance.
Now, if the SS system goes bust, and no matter the validity of my moral claim, the money is not there, I will be hurt. I will have been ripped off. I will be royally pissed. My indignation will be righteous.
If you are near your retirement, and the income you planned on is not there for you, you will be hurt, unjustly. If it happens anyway, because of financial realities beyond your control, you are going to be more than upset, you are going to suffer in old age. No one has the right to question your morals for making the deal you did.
Having said all of that does not mean that there are not problems that have to be addressed. The incestuous relationship between union s and the Democratic Party is corrupt in every sense of the word. Just like the unions bought your ongoing support for union dues by delivering benefits ahead of the curve in the private sector, politicians are paying off their constituents with gifts from the public treasury. This is wrong, and undermines the legitimacy of self-government as we have idealized it. This is morally wrong, and should be illegal for the purpose of holding those responsible criminally liable for these practices.
I think that is where we are headed; a rejection of the wholesale hijacking of our economic and political systems for mercantilist interests. That is the Libertarian problem as I see it.
Good luck to you.
I agree with you.
The fact of the matter is that libertarians do not like State mandated anything, or any State coercion. Thus they don’t like teachers or teachers unions because they are integrated with the State.
That being said, it is not the teacher’s union contracts that are causing the States to be running in the red. Teacher’s have always had free health care, and pensions based on years of service and final salary. The problem is that the cost of proving these benefits has skyrocketed. The cost of healthcare has risen primarily as a consequence of government interference, most recently the 30% increase due to Obamacare.
The cost of pension benefits has gone up as a result of inflation – how many gallons of gas could you buy with a teachers salary 26 years ago versus now? This is a direct consequence of the action of the Fed. The ability to fund the pensions has also dropped due to the loss in real value of the Stock Market, again caused by the Fed.
I agree it is hypocritical to try and justify contact abrogation for teachers union contracts, while criticizing Obama for stiffing the Chrysler bondholders.
I have trouble with calling a contract valid or ethical when the method for payment is to steal the money from the children grandchildren and all future generations of a third party and call it a benefit to those who are the victims of the theft. There are those of us who are working diligently to try show the public that this is wrong, but I have only two option when the time comes to fulfill the obligation that was taken out in my name without my consent: I can pay, or I can have my property seized at gun point and have my liberty taken away through imprisonment.
I don’t know if you, Libertarian Teacher, saw this as the practical consequence when you took your job and I can’t blame you for accepting a job with apparent security for yourself. But, there are only three option for the other party to your contract: He did not know that the money would run out, in which case his property should be the collateral, not mine; he lied to you about his ability to perform, again his property should be seized, not mine; or he knew but thought that the day of final reckoning would be much farther off, and the next generation would get the shaft instead of you, in which case, again, his property should be the collateral for this deal. In this the state is the liable party and should be forced to sell off its property to meet its current obligations and be prevented from taking on any further obligations that it cannot pay.
@Nathan March 1, 2011 at 1:56 am
“I have only two options when the time comes to fulfill the obligation that was taken out in my name without my consent: I can pay, or I can have my property seized at gun point and have my liberty taken away through imprisonment.”
Again, you absolve yourself. To hold an individual teacher responsible for you having to pay your taxes is like blaming me for the taxes because I use the public roads, or blaming me for the practices on Wall Street because I have money in a 401K.
Teachers work, and they become part of a system when they do. If the system is bad, you are as responsible as she. You were equally complacent, if not in this particular issue, then certainly in some other way, because like it or not, deny it or not, you are also part of the system.
Corruption is wrong. Mercantilism is wrong. So, the particular way that public schools are financed and teachers are credentialed and public schools are subsidized against private schools, and unions hold monopoly representation rights, and union dues can be used for political campaigns, and union members can be rallied to “get the vote out”, and friends of the unions get elected, who then raid the public treasury in breach of their fiduciary duty to citizen taxpayers in order to keep the entire rotten system going, cannot possibly be laid at the feet of a single teacher who is mostly trying to get papers graded, supply the classroom, and deal with 30+ kids every single day. Get real. Be responsible with your criticism. Cast some of that disdain in your own direction.
“ In this the state is the liable party and should be forced to sell off its property to meet its current obligations and be prevented from taking on any further obligations that it cannot pay.”
Your use of the passive tense is revealing. Just who will do these things and just exactly how will they be done? You are saying that this teacher is responsible for single-handedly accomplishing these things you mandate?
Think about that. It is important.
>Exactly what is a “civil contract” and when did I sign that thing?
The civil contract is a summation of the laws and customs of a community. Most people are born into it.
and if i don’t like it, “too bad for me”, right?
Nope, its not too bad for you. You have 5 choices (though only 3 if you are a non-citizen):
1. Decide that the positives of that contract outweigh the negatives and that it isn’t worth your time to fight to change it.
2. Work within the constraints of those laws to change the terms (like creating new laws and trying to repeal bad laws).
3. Emigrate and choose a different social contract (i.e. the laws of a different locale).
4. Civil disobedience. IE you can disobey the laws you find offensive, but keep in mind that civil disobedience comes with consequences that you can not expect to avoid (Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, and Gandhi did not expect to avoid jail). I would argue that this choice and the one below it are not available to non-citizens since they choose to live in the country and have not yet become a permanent, represented member of society.
5. If the laws are so abhorrent and the government totally non-responsive, rebellion is the ultimate option.
>Comment:
>You would trade one “social contract” for another? Canada is no picnic either.
>All those little islands have their own games to play too.
I was writing theoretically. Far as I’m concerned the US is still the best place in the world, all things considered.
> You are forced to pay for things you never wanted or asked for, but were born into the bondage of
Except for the wars, I am generally pleased to pay my share. I don’t use half the services that are available but that’s OK. I am glad the neighbors use the state parks even if I don’t.
>We are not a singular body of people, but 300 million individuals.
John Donne
Meditation XVII: No man is an island…
“All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated…As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness….No man is an island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
“Except for the wars, I am generally pleased to pay my share. I don’t use half the services that are available but that’s OK. I am glad the neighbors use the state parks even if I don’t.”
Until your neighbors use something that you are forced to pay for and don’t approve of. What then? Also, what if I don’t want to pay for somebody else to do something they want – does it matter that I don’t want to be forced to subsidize others? This is, of course, the socialist calculation problem in a nutshell.
>And further, what if such a contract existed, and my distant neighbor got fed up and
moved away. A new guy moves into his house.
If the contract was filed with the county and attached to the deed (forget the proper term) the new guy would be obligated to pay.
Say you inherited a condo from your parents. Would you expect to live in the condo without paying the dues? If not, why should live in the US without paying taxes?
> If my company does not give me
compensation that I feel I deserve, I will find a new one that does.
BUT say your contract with the company specified that as delayed compensation you would earn a pension at a rate of 2% per year of service if one worked at least 20 years. Would you give up your pension without a fight?
Should the government also cancel military retirements?
>First of all I don’t believe any union public school teacher can be a true Libertarian.
If these teachers had any common sense they would realize that all the monies paid to
them is taken from taxpayers.
Then you think that elected Libertarian politicians like Ron Paul should refuse compensation because the money is taken from taxpayers?
@Billwald,
The point I was making is that how can a person be called a Libertarian when that person knows that the public school system is supported by taxes that are compulsary in nature. They are taken by force. I would think a job that is more in line with capitalism and voluntary exchange would be libertarian in nature.
As for the Ron Paul question. If Ron Paul supports the forceful taking of a persons wealth and hard work through taxes then he is also not a Libertarian. At least Ron Paul tries to conform to the original role of government based on the founding fathers and the constitution. We will pay taxes when it comes to defense and the judicial system. I have no problem in paying taxes to support individual rights. That is why we gave the government the monopoly on force.
So again I find it amusing that a union member and teacher calls herself a libertarian.
>Admit it: You want to keep your job until you retire at all cost, even if it does more
harm than good to others. You want to forever increase your pay and benefits. And you
want it all after you retire too. Admit that you don’t really care who pays or how you
get it.
Ya sure,you betcha. I put my neck on the line for 30 years as a police officer trying to keep you miserable citizens from killing each other and now I spend my 60% pension and sleep well.
“Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system! ”
… my neck vs. you miserable citizens – who would break out in a killing frenzy if there were no police officers around … ? what the?
>Until your neighbors use something that you are forced to pay for and don’t approve of.
I don’t approve of the wars but all things considered the US is still the best place in the world for the working class.
The richest people in the world are the queens of The Netherlands and GB.
One has to laugh at those who attempt to justify economic cannibalism and rape by calling into being some illusory “contract” between the opportunist cannibals and the victims they expect to feed upon and abuse. What twisted illogic. Pathetic.
There is no justification for forcing a Woman A to pay for the retirement of Man B. Unless A specifically granted consent and agreed to pay towards B’s existence there is no way A can or should be expected to pay even one brass razoo to the upkeep of B. Mr B is on his own no matter how much he reckons he paid into a “social security”, no matter how much seniority he claims, no matter how many other bludgers and parasites he can muster to whine on in harmony with his claims, no matter how “important” he’d like to pretend his function in society was. Even if B starves, that grants him no right to expropriate ANYTHING from A.
Introducing a third party makes no difference. For example, if B is promised a retirement pension by his employer, C, that in no way obligates A. It definately does not obligate A where B has worked for C as an enforcer of C’s power upon A.
Should the pensions of state employees, including the military, be affected by this? Yes. They are not immune to principle. Time to stop engaging in economic cannibalism and rape.
Sione
“Ya sure,you betcha. I put my neck on the line for 30 years as a police officer trying to keep you miserable citizens from killing each other and now I spend my 60% pension and sleep well.”
Facist tosspot talk.
You got paid full value for what your services were worth at the time. You had 30 years to do the maths and figure out that the whole pension scheme was a Ponzi and worse. You had 30 years to work out that what you were doing and that the institution you were working for was immoral- corrupt to its very heart. Now you are about to earn the consequences of your investment of that thirty years of your life. You should be very worried. See, here is why.
Your pension is not going to be paid in full. The state is going to cut it down by various means, erode its value and finally all but eliminate it altogether. See, here is their deal.
They are politicians and bureaucrats who live in the NOW. They have no allegiance to you. They are pragmatists. They are going to decide whether they pay their young fit enforcers of the present, whether they pay themselves and their masters (their funders) or pay instead a bunch of old fart once-weres hanging around the place, of no present usefulness, slowly rotting in a terminal geriatric decline. As time goes on, more and more of the important voters are going to be young (younger than retirees with 30 years in). They’ll either vote by moving away (in which case the tax base collapses and the state has to cut costs) or they’ll vote by supporting political candidates who promote things like, “repudiate the pension overhead, you young guys shouldn’t be forced to pay for those old fossils, it’s not YOUR responsibility.” See, here is your deal.
The more time goes by, the older your cohort will be, the less there’ll be of them and the more it will become politically acceptible for economic triage to be applied against mouldy oldies sucking on the state tit. See, there’s nothing you can do about it.
You are not important any more. You are no longer of use to the immoral institution you once worked as an enforcer for. They are not going to pay for you. It is going to be easier not to.
Sleep well at night? Do it while you can. You should be really worried about the consequences you’ve earned. Suck it up. Enjoy what you’ve got coming.
Sione
>You got paid full value for what your services were worth at the time.
My services were worth my pay and benefits plus my pension. Well, maybe not mine . . . the other 1000 or so officers. I always was a trouble maker.
My pension had something like 4 billion surplus until the State of Washington stole it and quit making their required payments.
>Should the pensions of state employees, including the military, be affected by this? Yes.
Without a military draft how would our owners get enough suckers to enlist? Patriotism only goes so far.
> We will pay taxes when it comes to defense and the judicial system.
OK to screw teachers and the guy who drives a truck for the city but our owners need someone to protect them, the politicians, when martial law is introduced?
And without a draft, how will our owners find enough suckers to enlist and get themselves killed for the oil companies if the retired GIs are screwed out of their pensions?
@Billwald,
You need to take a deep breath and slow down just a minute. My comments to the Libertarian Teacher were specifically addressing her use of the word Libertarian in her sign on. I found it to be a little weird that a person that has a job taking taxpayer monies and belongs to a union is calling herself a Libertarian. I guess it is possible but it is not my definition. I would think she would be working in a private school where the parents voluntarily pay for the service of educating their children.
As for her contract question I did not address, but I would think she has a point that if it was negotiated in good faith than it should be honored. But the old saying is, “what the government giveth they can take away.”
So obviously the state has its fingers in every aspect of society. To unwind this now will be a big problem. The big one of course will be Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. We cannot continue to support these programs or otherwise we will be fighting in the streets.
How exactly is stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights not a violation of the first amendment?
You can’t pick and chose amendments. Most of them wouldn’t have jobs if we actually followed the Constitution. I don’t recall fire fighting and teaching as legitimate powers of government. The 10A doesn’t apply in this case as the 14A supersedes the States’ abilities to extend power beyond those enumerated. And no one is striping them of their ability to voluntarily get together and petition, what is being stripped is the explicit government granted power that we have to listen to them, can’t replace them when they refuse to work, and to force everyone who works there to pay into the system.
J. Murray, I am trying to understand your logic, are you saying that Wisconsin is not a state? Or are you saying that the constitution forbids states from setting up fire fighting and public schools? If so, please explain where.
As for the government granted power: that was a power that was negotiated as part of a labor negotiation. How is it that the government is allowed to supersede these negotiations by writ? Does that mean that the government can pass laws to break any contracts it signs through legitimate negotiations?
Oh, and let me be clear, I am not very pro-union, however I am very pro-rights, pro-freedoms, and pro-live-up-to-your-obligations.
Mr. Murray,
OK, on this I totally agree with you. What the government giveth, the government can taketh away.
I get a real kick out of hte fact taht Obama is carping about WI union rights when Federal workers have ben stripped of collective bargaining rights for some time now. So he believes in rights for WI teachers that he doesn’t believe in for air traffic controllers? What a phoney!!
Wildberry,
There is no hypocrisy in Obama’s position, he did not strip federal workers of their collective bargaining rights, that came before he was president. I still fail to see how this could possibly be constitutional. The government did not give these rights by passing laws, they did it through the collective bargaining procedure. To supersede a legitimate contract negotiation by passing a law or decree is an incredible abuse of power. If you want to take away their collective bargaining rights, sit down at the table and negotiate. I don’t care what you think about unions and collective bargaining, how can you put up with this abuse of power?
AG,
Obama is a great beneficiary of unions, as is the Democratic party. That doesn’t mean I wish I could say that about Republicans. The system stinks to high heaven.
It is constitutional because if it was constitutional to allow it, it is constitutional to disallow it. This is not about contract law. It is about collective bargaining. That means that party A recognizes party B as the representative on the other side of the table. That is a choice.
Any employer today in the private sector has no power to prevent a group of people who happen to be his employees, from associating with one another and forming a union. They can always go on strike, and within the limits of criminal law, no one can stop them under the power of their Constitutional rights to speech, association and assembly.
If this union is not recognized as the agent for all employees, then the employer can deal with each employee under the limitations of labor laws. If the employer recognizes collective bargaining rights, he accepts an obligation to negotiate with a union representative as an agent for all employees.
If the union gets a good deal this year, and a great deal next year, and continues to push the envelope, guess what happens? The business goes bust. That is in the private sector.
In the public sector, there is only one side of the table. It is not adversarial in nature, but symbiotic. And more importantly, governments don’t generally go bust (although we may be testing this theory!). They are not subject to competition from non-union shops. Workers in the private sector do not elect their bosses. Don’t you see this as a problem?
This is why even FDR recognized the moral hazard of collective bargaining in the public sector, and why federal workers no longer have it. It came to a head over the air-traffic controllers who held the government hostage over wages and benefits, as I recall.
I was once a teacher and president of a school board. It is one of the last bastions of communism in America. That is a real problem, and collective bargaining is part of the cause, probably a very large part. Why in teaching? Because we have a social policy of public education by which we give monopoly (nearly) powers of funding to government. That government negotiates with unions, and unions help them get or stay in office. It is all funded by taxpayers, not the market.
Do you know what the Feds did for the unions of GM? That is a major problem. It is not a constitutional issue in the way you mean it. If the Feds had stayed out, the market would have handled it. Instead tax payers bailed out the union pensions and granted them an equity stake in the company. Do you smell a rat?
Some of you are billed for teacher’s salaries and pensions with which you disagree. I am billed for military salaries and pensions with which I disagree. That’s life. Should every voter have a line item veto over where his taxes should go? This would be a money saver? I think not!
“I am billed for military salaries and pensions with which I disagree.”
You’re not going to find many people here who disagree with you. I think you’re confusing this site as a conservative or Republican site.
A major problem with collective bargaining with public employee unions is the conflict of interest. In the private sector unions this is not the case.
In public unions the monies from the union is used to elect legislators. Then the legislators are sitting across the table with the unions to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement? Is there something wrong with this picture?
Here is a great article from Kevin Williamson that everyone should read.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/260830
Everyone have a good day on the battle lines.
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