Why can't right wingers see that unions are a pure form of capitalism?

[HEyHEY]

A bunch of guys who aren't loaded get together and say, "Hey, if we are united we can all make more money!" Sounds like a simple and effective business plan to me.

[Aristus]

1. To say nothing of the fact that a union is a democracy, and a corporation is not.

Democracy, and the rights of working people are why I am a union-supporter. :thumbsup:

[Electric Monk]

2. They (RWers) support owners, not workers.

Stockholm Syndrome comes to mind, regarding those who vote that way despite not being owners themselves.

[kentuck]

3. delete

They are about the purest form of democracy in our country.

[Frustratedlady]

4. First, they came for the unions...and then...

they came for me.

[SpiralHawk]

5. RW SuckerPuppets got wicked bad Daddy Complexes

They imagine the Corporate Daddy will take care of them and tell them what to think and what to do. That's all they really want out of life. Actual autonomy & democracy (such as in a union) is frightening for them.

[kenny blankenship]

6. Probably because capital is defined as a surplus of money.

and capitalism is a world created by those with a surplus of money.

Capital can be defined as know-how, a business plan, as equipment and tools in an ancillary sense, but only within a prior sense of the system of production organized by individuals and groups with a surplus of money either in cash or in access to credit. Capitalism is the political, legal, and economic system of privileging the interests of people who have a surplus of money, money in excess of their own long range requirements for survival, to put towards the facilities, raw materials (if needed), equipment and hired hands needed for a profit making venture, which they either own themselves outright or partly own as a passive investor. Those who don't have this surplus, which would be all the "hired hands" of the world, and anyone who doesn't derive their livelihood solely from the deployment of surplus money, cannot be capitalists, no matter how slavishly they may espouse capitalism as a system and declare their love for it. Fawning at the feet of their masters will earn them little favor, and none of the legal & political privileges of the capital owners. They remain second class citizens within a capitalist system, a very distant second, although capitalist governments rarely tell them so in so many words. That is why you will not persuade right wingers that unions should be applauded for trying to make more money for themselves. They know that capitalism is the system of PRIVILEGING the owners of the money surplus, specifically privileging their quest for ever greater profits and accumulated wealth relative to the base of society. You may as well ask them to applaud an increase in the price of raw materials. Indeed they would be more likely to applaud an increase in raw materials costs than increased labor costs, since a gain in raw materials prices represents a chance for higher returns for some capitalist somewhere in the production system. Capitalism doesn't produce inequality by some strange accident. Inequality is the entire goal of capitalism. Cheerleaders for capitalism will never accept that their team has to "play fair", and inviting them to see it that way is to mistake the fundamental nature of capitalist ideology and its system of psychological appeals and rewards.

Unions are not a form of capitalism, pure or impure. Union members seek their own interest - collectively. Seeking one's own interest does not make a capitalist; for every human being, every organism, seeks its own interest while it lives. Members of a labor union are not capitalists practicing capitalism because they are defined in the first place by their lack of capital. They have no surplus of cash and no one will loan them 5 or 10 million dollars to get started. (And if they got the loan and started their business they still wouldn't be capitalists until they had accumulated enough profits to make loans themselves to others "to get them started.") If they do not find and keep employment in the short term, they will starve in the street. The 20 bucks in their pocket or the 200 bucks under their mattress is not enough to found a business venture. While they have employment, they are spared starvation in the street, but only just. They are unlikely to accumulate a surplus sufficient to restart their lives as organizers of other people's labor, and it is the goal of the capitalists they work for to make sure they never do. If you managed to scrape together enough money on their wages to eventually start your own business that means that they missed a marginal opportunity to maximize their own profit.

[treestar]

7. But the capitalist still needs people to work for him

He has to get people to work at a wage at which he can still afford to produce the product. That's a bargain with each worker. But since everyone needs to support themselves, the one offering the job has more power than the one trying to get one - maybe there are exceptions where there is a labor shortage - then the worker might have other options and thus some more power. But in general the worker is at the disadvantage.

The union stands together in a demand for a certain wage, and it's all or nothing for the employer, and it does pressure employer to go for a higher wage. The employer would rather bargain with the individual than the union.

The capitalist suddenly does not want to pay the market price, now that it's collectivized. Now the market is operating "unfairly." The market worked so well by itself, until this came along.