Collective bargaining by riot

So, the students kicked off. Cue condemnation and jubiliation (Actually, Bone's blog has some detailed accounts from inside the riot).

Now, I've been to a few riots, and know that the police always win, even if they didn't control this one as effectively as they usually manage. There's no way that the rioters can force change, except, the cost of policing must be taken into account - as we know, the police are facing cuts as well, but making the state find non-discretionary spend to protect itself could throw a spanner in it's spending plans.

To do that would require sustained and repeated demonstrations, not one offs (the mistake anarchists and the like with their annual May Day riot made). More riots/demos by a wider movement would force some sort of discussion, but, as we've seen in Greece, if the political offices hold firm, it isn't guaranteed to work.

It remains, though, plebeian, rather than proletarian as a style of politics - plea bargaining with power, rather than seeking to recreate the conditions and world according to our own liking.

More important than rucking with cops is organising for political action - the students are threatening to unseat Lib-Dems (a good enough move in itself), but an electoral movement to use political power to control our own labour is needed.

Update:

Luke Akehurst makes some good points, though, from what I've read elsewhere, his 'few bad apples' thesis may not hold, as there may have been some genuine student involvement (but I'm sure the old lags and usual suspects may have had a hand). Obviously, where I disagree is with the use he would put political power to, but then, that's why I don't support his party...

FBU Picket run down by manager

hat tip Ian Bone

Mick Shaw, president of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU), described the accident. He said: "A fire engine returned from an incident and drove into the fire station, its crew refusing to wind down their windows and talk to the pickets.

"It was followed by a car driven by the officers, and as the pickets tried to talk to the driver of the car, it accelerated suddenly and one of the striking firefighters was thrown up and into the windscreen.

(Croydon Guardian

The driver of the car has been arrested.

Update: More at Scrocialist untie

In my judgement

A lot of confusion appears to have grown up around the BA/Unite injunction. A few things need to be made clear.

First, as to spoilt papers, section 231 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992 says

"As soon as is reasonably practicable after the holding of the ballot, the trade union shall take such steps as are reasonably necessary to ensure that all persons entitled to vote in the ballot are informed of the number of (a) votes cast in the ballot; (b) individuals answering yes to the question, or as the case may be, to each question; (c) individuals answering no to the question or as the case may be, to each question; and (d) spoiled voting papers."

So, the law is the Union *must* provide a result including the numbers of spoilt ballots. Unite, though, maintain they did take the reasonable necessary steps to give the statutory results. What was argued in court, as can be seen from the Judgement, was whether the steps taken were in fact those "reasonably necessary" or whether they were insufficient.

Indeed, what we are up against, then, is not necessarily a failure to comply with the act, but the British common law system, wherein the courts get to interpret the meaning of such bits of law as 'reasonably' - many laws operate on a basis of trying your level best to comply, and hoping not to reach a court case which will confirm one way or another the legal practice (a lot of copyright work is like that).

Anyway, this is the most important point. The judge wasn't even making a ruling on whether the union's actions were legal, merely whether there was likely to be a case to answer

In the end I consider the arguments as to whether the statute has been complied with give rise to properly arguable issues for trial. The matter is not so clear as Mr Hendy would in my view have it. I certainly cannot hold that the union's likelihood of success is overwhelming. I have regard to my assessment of the likelihood of success at trial, and at present I am inclined to think that the union may well have failed to put in place an adequately analysed system calculated to ensure that all reasonable steps were taken to communicate with relevant members as soon as reasonably practicable the relevant items of statutory information. The point to my mind is an arguable one.

That's it, it's not a ruling, it's just an injunction based on the likelihood that BA *might* win the court case and so be subject to severe unjust detriment were the injunction not to be granted.

So, the law puts the test of reasonableness into the hands of the judges. But look at it this way - imagine if a journalist had to notify anyone likely to be identifiable in their copy at least a week in advance of publication, and had to show them that article in final draft and in full. Imagine if they could get an injunction based on the likelihood that there was any inaccuracy (including placing of commas or semi-colons) or if they felt that that they had not been properly informed of the process. We'd say clearly that was an inhibition on freedom of speech, and so this is on the freedom to strike.

Separate and unequal...

Hatty Harman has managed to get a commission into inequality to report (summary here). Here's some of what they say:

Britain is an unequal country, more so than many other industrialised countries and more so than it was a generation ago. This is manifest in many ways – most obviously in the gaps between those who are well off and those who are less well off...

For some readers, the sheer scale of the inequalities in outcomes which we present will be shocking. Whether or not people’s positions reflect some form of ‘merit’ or ‘desert’, the sheer scale of differences in wealth, for instance, may imply that it is impossible to create a cohesive society. Wide inequalities erode the bonds of common citizenship and recognition of human dignity across economic divides. A number of analysts have pointed to the ways in which large inequalities in the kinds of economic outcome we look at are associated with societies having lower levels of happiness or well-being in other respects, and to the social problems and economic costs resulting from these...

Most people and all the main political parties in Britain subscribe to the ideal of ‘equality of opportunity’. The systematic nature of many of the differentials we present, and the ways in which advantages and disadvantages are reinforced across the life cycle (as we describe in Chapter 11 of the main report), make it hard, however, to sustain an argument that what we show is the result of personal choices against a background of equality of opportunity, however defined. Inequality in turn then acts as a barrier to social mobility...

Median income in 2007-08 was £393 per week (at 2008 prices) – in other words, half the population was in households where income adjusted for household size put them in a position that was less favourable than a couple without children with a net weekly income of £393 (£20,500 per year), and half was in a more favourable position. A tenth had incomes below £191 and a tenth had incomes of more than £806 per week (including more than 5 per cent above £1,000 per week). Thus the 10th percentile was just under half the median, and the 90th percentile was just over twice the median, and so the 90:10 ratio was more than four...The top 1 per cent has incomes more than five times the median...

Occupational social class is the only breakdown where within-group variation is generally substantially less than that within the population as a whole, although it remains large (Table S5). Growing inequality between broad occupational classes was one of the important contributors to the growth in earnings inequality over the 1980s....

The evidence we examine confirms that social background really matters. There are significant differences in ‘school readiness’ before and when children reach school by parental income and mother’s education (Figure S12). Children entering primary school in 2005-2006 whose mothers had degrees were assessed 6 months ahead of those who had no qualifications above Grade D at GCSE. In addition, every extra £100 per month in income when children were small was associated with a difference equivalent to a month’s development. Rather than being fixed at birth, these differences widen through childhood...

What could be clearer, inequality of outcome creates inequality of opportunity. Class is the big divider.

Sarky again...

M'Lord Rogers is an interesting man, with interesting things to say:

"I think that anyone who uses his power due to birth [like Prince Charles', whose views on the Chelsea Barracks redevelopment saw it stopped] breaks a constitutional understanding - it's not a law, it's a constitutional understanding - and a trust we have within our society about the role of people who have received power in that manner."

Again, we find replicated the debates of yesteryear, a true bourgeois finding arbitrary authority of a Royal getting in his way.

To say I'm no fan of M'Lord Rogers is an understatement. His best achievement is his remuneration package, which, according to Private Eye is calculated on a post tax basis (i.e. his gross pay increases when direct taxation goes up to protect his net/take home pay). he's an inspiration to us workers on how to avoid the burden of taxation falling upon us.

Nonetheless, he is but one bourgeois, but we still see the old class struggle, and its root causes played out in this merry little drama. Prince Charles did stop a development, when so many other individuals who object to schemes are overridden or ignored by the planning process. Doubtless, he had a quiet word with the Qatari royal family, but it's enough to show aristocratic power still remains.

Should we celebrate M'Lord Rogers' stance? No, we just laugh that the constitutional lash up once again shows creaking signs, and hope that the end to both rulers and robbers is at hand.

PFI - the truth is out there.

Well, the Government are going to bail out the PFI companies. The crisis has made the inevitable happen sooner. After all, the point of running critical services is that they must be run, and can't be allowed to fail, transferring control to another firm or organisation costs money and causes disruption - the risk of PFI has always been mitigated.

The only reason, aside from bunkum about risk and private sector innovation and management, is that it creates legally different employers within the public sector, i.e. it is about breaking the unions, and using laws against solidarity striking to undermine union solidarity and national pay bargaining.

All the tosh talked by Unison and the labour left about public sector borrowing, etc. was exploded by the RMT, who managed to co-ordinate strikes against the fragmented companies, thus undermining the manoeuvre by effective solidarity. If we want to combat PFI and workforce fragmentation, we need co-ordinated targetted strike action,not pleadings to Government or campaigns to "keep it public" - it is purely a union matter.

AFK

I went home up north for a while, and so have been afk.

I missed the big demo on Saturday, I was busy meeting up with a mate I'd not seen for a while. Anyway, whilst I would agree it is futile for a socialist in London who is a member of a tiny party without parliamentary or council representation of any stripe to actually make comments on the war in Israel/Palestine (there is a comment on the Party's blog here), I do think there is something needful to be done. That is, to counter the support from equally impotent, but still vocal supporters of the war in this country and many similar. By whom, chiefly, I mean the "No justice, no peace" crowd - glibly chanting away and pushing others to their death from the comfort of their armchairs.

But first, back to class. The is a, if you will, hard edged class-centric way of posing the matter. The strength of the working class comes not simply through raw numbers, and certainly not through military might. Our strength is creative, we make, maintain and remake the world around us - and will use that ability to build socialism. The more of us there are to do the building, the lighter the work and the greater our strength to get our way.

War runs contrary to all of that. It destroys our work and our ability to work. It destroys the fruits of our labour. It destroys us. By disrupting daily life, causing unemployment, by cutting back democracy, by taking our time, energy, inclinations and thought processes and turning them towards destruction rather than creation, war, warfare and militarism undermine our consciousness as a class and our existence as a class.

It promotes plebian rather than proletarian politics - so much of Gaza is now unemployed that there is no working class strength left, only numbers, only the bitter will to fight and be killed. Hamas and Israel both as provocateurs and agents have brought this about to suit their own ends. Israelis are being pulled from their work to serve as reservists, while the national economy is put through more strain and its coffers are drained by dropping $BigNumber bombs.

The war undermines the working class in Gaza and in Israel. The immediate object must be peace: for its own sake, whatever political settlement is required. Those who take sides, or call for the victory of one side or another, and who give succor, encouragement and the prospect of international intervention on one side or another, are directly attacking the workers of Israel and Palestine.

Within our means, within our limited capacity, we can influence at least that much - take the argument on, and maybe stop the ludicrous corpse counting, hand wringing and its concommitant macho bullshitter rrrrevolutionary violence posturing. Getting the international strength of the workers behind a peace first is incredibly difficult, but expressed in terms of solidarity with the workers of both those states it would do more good than the endless tit-for-tat game of siding with the ruling class of either state.

Spot the the theme

From Marx and Coca Cola, he reports that Senate Republicans killed the Car maker bailout because: "This is the democrats first opportunity to payoff organized labor after the election. This is a precursor to card check and other items. Republicans should stand firm and take their first shot against organized labor, instead of taking their first blow from it."

Who said the class war was dead? The same theme emerges over at electoral vote:"A striking pattern has emerged in the fight over bailing out the big three automobile companies. Senators from the north are for it and senators from the south are against it. Why? It turns out there are assembly plants in both the North and the South. The ones in the North are owned by American companies and are highly unionized; the ones in the South are owned by foreign (mostly Japanese) companies and are not unionized. Hourly pay in northern and southern ones is comparable but benefits are much better in the North. Southern senators who oppose the bailout don't really object to the government interfering with private industry and don't really even mind a government-appointed car czar running the companies. The sticking point is that they want to break the unions and force union members to take cuts in pay and benefits to bring them down to the level that the workers in the South get."

Over at Dave's Part young master Osler notes the drive is now on over here for paycuts, and hopes that Unions will resist. Of course, we know that unions are powerless in the face of unemployment, and with a stagnant pool of around two million to start with, when it grows to (fingers crossed against) 5 million, there'll be fuck all we can do. I'm afraid it's political action or nothing.

To be clear, I noted Charlies reproduction schemas and disportionality as being the means of analysing crisis - I noted that only destroying capital really gets us out of the mess, but hammering wages might enable some firms to survive. It would be counter productive because, like pump priming it leaves the root cause intact, but it would help some capitalists maybe to the disadvantage of others. Certainly, they'll try it, because the only alternative is suicide - that's the point of crisis, that in trying to save themselves, capitalists make it worse for themselves (and for us).

To the ballot boxes, mes braves, to take up cudgels against the crisis that is capitalism.

Vote early

Well, this morning I voted. I voted in the Kentish Town "Arizona by-election" - caused by the Lib-Dem councillor who thought he could represent an inner London ward from Arizona (he went there to get a Phd.).

Given the unrelenting lies of the Lib-Dems - including the dodgiest of bar charts (not to scale, using the last election but one, putting a text box over the bars to disguise where the zero line was, etc. - all to try and make their real challengers in the ward, the Greens, seem less of a threat) - I was sorely tempted to vote to try and get them out.

In the end, though, Party discipline prevailed, and I spoilt my ballot by writing "World Socialism: SPGB" across my ballot paper.

My way of explaining this strategy, this days, is by likening it to strike action. By consciously applying a political picket line, which says: "We are not going to express priorities and preferences, unless and until this great issue of class is sorted out." They need our votes, our input.

Sometimes it might hurts us a little, as all strike action does, but the final goal is clear.

Millionaires charter

It seems there is a rule for the tories, be a millionaire, or don't be in the Cabinet.

Herein vie the Spectator, is the Shadow Cabinet Rich List.Just two of them:

George Osborne

Shadow Chancellor

Inherited Wealth & Property: £4.3 million

Osborne’s father Sir Peter co-founded luxury wallpaper and fabrics company Osborne & Little, and his son benefits from a trust which has a 15% of the business.Osborne Junior stands to inherit a substantial share of this company. The business, which was once a publicly traded company, now conducts business as Interiors Acquistions. In 2003, Osborne and Little de-listed from the London stock Exchange and went private. At the time, it was valued at £12.9 million making Osborne Jnr’s stake worth just under £2 million. A family home in Notting Hill adds around £1.8 million. In addition the couple own a constituency property valued at around £500,000. On his wife Frances’s side, her father is life peer Howell of Guildford, a former Minister in Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet.

David Cameron

Leader of Conservatives

Property and assets: £3.2 million

Cameron joined parliament in 2001. Prior to becoming an MP he was head of corporate affairs at Carlton Television. His only non-parliamentary post was with bar and club company Urbium plc for which he was paid around £25,000 per annum. The couple’s wealth is, however, in property and they own a £2.5 million London home and a £1 million constituency house. His wife earns an income for the family via her position as creative director of upmarket Bond Street stationers Smythson. She netted a six figure bonus, thought to be £300,000, after a takeover of the company. However, the Camerons real wealth is likely to be come at a later date via inheritance from both sides of their family. Samantha’s mother is Viscountess Astor. She is a successful business woman in her own right and holds a large stake in OKA Direct, a furniture and accessories company. Samantha’s father, Sir Robert Sheffield – from whom her mother was divorced in 1975 – is chairman and majority shareholder of Normanby Estate Holdings which is worth £5.2 million. David’s father and grandfather were both stockbrokers which should eventually contribute to the couple’s wealth.

These, apparently, are the people who believe in social justice, in helping the poor - I mean, it's not likely that they would run the country in favour of multimillionaires, or anything. I mean, how could they. It's inconceivable.

The honest party of capital - it's a class war and we know whose side their on.

Striking works

See, told you so!.

Let's hope that the kids in Scotland get the same result.[*]

We have an obligation to each other to push wages up, and to exhert our strength where we can.

A victory for one is a victory for all.

[*] Note the appalling BBC photo of some bins bags on a street, as if this is the winter of discontent again, FFS, it's only a 1 day stoppage. Right into the employers myth of chaos and inconvenience.

Now and again, and again, and again...

Then:

The man opened a door. It was some kind of storeroom, and he walked Peter inside and slammed the door behind him. "Now, out with it!" he said. The man thrust into his pocket the printed circular, or whatever it was--Peter never saw it again, and never found out what was printed on it. With his free hand the man grabbed one of Peter's hands, or rather one finger of Peter's hand, and bent it suddenly backward with terrible violence. "Oh!" screamed Peter. "Stop!" And then, with a wild shriek, "You'll break it."

"I mean to break it! mean to break every bone in your body! I'll tear your finger-nails out; I'll tear the eyes out of your head, if I have to! You tell me who helped you make that bomb!"

Peter broke out in a storm of agonized protest; he had never heard of any bomb, he didn't know what the man was talking about; he writhed and twisted and doubled himself over backward, trying to evade the frightful pain of that pressure on his finger.

"You're lying!" insisted Guffey. "I know you're lying. You're one of that crowd."

"What crowd? Ouch! I dunno what you mean!"

"You're one of them Reds, aint you?"

"Reds? What are Reds?"

Upton Sinclair's 100%: The Story of a Patriot (1920). And Now:

The signs of something uglier here were apparent first in superficial ways. Some officers had traditional fascist songs as ringtones on their mobile phones and talked enthusiastically about Mussolini and Pinochet. Repeatedly, they ordered prisoners to say "Viva il duce." Sometimes, they used threats to force them to sing fascist songs: "Un, due, tre. Viva Pinochet!"

The 222 people who were held at Bolzaneto were treated to a regime later described by public prosecutors as torture. On arrival, they were marked with felt-tip crosses on each cheek, and many were forced to walk between two parallel lines of officers who kicked and beat them. Most were herded into large cells, holding up to 30 people. Here, they were forced to stand for long periods, facing the wall with their hands up high and their legs spread. Those who failed to hold the position were shouted at, slapped and beaten. Mohammed Tabach has an artificial leg and, unable to hold the stress position, collapsed and was rewarded with two bursts of pepper spray in his face and, later, a particularly savage beating. Norman Blair later recalled standing like this and a guard asking him "Who is your government?" "The person before me had answered 'Polizei', so I said the same. I was afraid of being beaten."

Nick Davies in the Guardian

Uniting the Workers

From the BBC:

Britain's biggest union, Unite, is merging with the US-based United Steelworkers union (USW) to create a new "global" union...Mr Simpson also urged other unions, from Poland to Australia, to join Workers Uniting.

Well, this is good news, a genuine international union, based around the practicality of international firms.

Of course, the T&G (a constituent part of Unite) has always had an international flavour, it owes much of the inspiration for its founding to the Knights of Labor working in the trans-atlantic docks.

Such a move is to be greatly applauded, if not copied, and hopefully it will move the politics of unions away from a national capital perspective towards a more clearly worker and class focused agenda - the mere concept of a transnational (albeit English language) union should be enough to start harumphing from the Blimps and put a little shiver of fear up the spines of certain quarters.

Of note, though, just as the British ruling class is trying to decide between Europe and transatlanticism, so too, clearly, have unite. Lets not forget, the ETUC does exist, albeit not to negotiate directly with employers.

The world for the workers?

The spiteful chimps

In the Grauniad, yesterday - how spite is the cornerstone of altruism.

In a nutshell:

One of the most widely used experimental setups to investigate the origins of altruism is the "ultimatum game". Two subjects are asked to share a cash sum of say £100. One of them (the proposer) decides the cut - who gets what. The other (the responder) can either accept the share offered or toss the money back in the proposer's face, in which case, neither of them takes any of it away.
They play the game only once, so there's no opportunity to develop reciprocal altruism. If the responder behaves entirely and rationally selfishly, he or she should accept whatever the proposer is prepared to give. But if the proposer offers less than £25, the other player tends to refuse the share and both leave empty handed. Most people are prepared to forsake personal benefit to punish selfishness. In the language of evolutionary psychologists, we are spiteful.

So, ethics aren't mathematically logical, they're evolved and rational (cf. Hegel's what is rational is actual and what is actual is rational).

Note, though - dear reader - that the trigger isn't parity, but taking the piss, so long as the divide isn't excessive people are willing to accept some uneven trade off.

Life is a one shot ultimatum game, and so long as people feel they're getting something out of the social system, they'll put up with inequality - cf. Marx' story about the poverty of living next to a bigger house: it isn't that the next house is bigger, it would seem, but that it isn't too big.

Add on that what will concern folks most is comparison with their peers - the ultra rich are too few and too far (and can be explained as exceptions and we begin to have a model for the psychological acceptance of class society.

Ruddy stupid chimps.

Class warrrrr!!!!

OK, I couldn't believe it, facing a council estate on Hampstead Road, round the back grotty end of Euston station stands a billboard - recently advertising the new Champagne bar at St. Pancras; yesterday, showing the advert I saw from the window of my bus to work "From limo to lounge in 10 minutes" - yes, it's the new Upper Class Wing at Heathrow from Virgin. At least they've segmented the market well and know who they are aiming for.

Our complimentary chauffeur driven car service whisks you to and from the airport, at both ends of your journey. At Heathrow, Gatwick and Johannesburg, jump the queue with Drive Thru Check In.

When flying Upper Class®, your seat is a suite. Complete with an extra large table, private power source, and guest seat for meeting or entertaining. When sleep beckons, your seat converts to a totally flat, super-wide bed complete with a duvet and turn down service. Explore the largest fully flat bed.

I am not fucking making this up. Privilege and comfort for the ultra rich: what bottles of Bells for them who queue like cattle?

It is not the fact of the service, risible and contemptible though it is, but the mind set, identity, class consciousness of anyone who purchases it. It is an offence of conceit and greed - conspicuous consumption and a contempt for your fellows. This is how the class war is waged by the otehr side, and they are conscious of what they are doing.

That cigarrette paper, again

The indefatigable Theo Blackwell continues to chart the assualt of the Lib-Dem(Majority)/Tory council in Camden - with the news that they have disbanded the council's Voluntary Sector Unit as part of their drive to hold council tax down, and be seen to be a low tax administration.

Further, he reports of swingeing cuts to mental health care services up in Highgate.

My sources have it, that, in fact, the Tories are leading the administration, and are the real political and intellectual quality of the regime - their major partner is just a bunch of puppets - so I hear.

What this is is an assault on soft targets - probably frequented by non-voters - from the council budget. Not care homes or schools or the sorts of things that might animate non-users of such services, but which do provide a great deal of what makes a community decent - and which you don't really miss till you try to use it and its not there.

This is the cigarrette paper between the mainstream parties, this tiny bit of difference that makes all the difference. Tories and Lib-Dems, for the strong, against the weak, against the vountary sector, against civil society - barricade yourselves up and spend your tax savings on home defence. Cut the social wage, and let the rest sink.

Say it loud, say it proud...

Victory to the RMT!

So, the maintenance crews for the former Metronet (the failed PPP company) are striking to get guarantees over pension and job security rights (see press release here). Strategically, this is directly in their members' interests.

Politically, it is in all our inetrests - the whole point of PFI is to fragment workers and evade national bargaining frameworks. If the message gets out that there isn't a simple, cheap transition method of taking over contracts without workers causing mayhem and all sorts of trouble, this will make investors think twice before joining in.

Also, we need to fight the idea that there can be any diminution of workers' standards as a result of the largely fictitious front PPP companies going arse voer tit.

So, when friends, colleagues and strangers on the street start complaining about the strike, explain, it benefits us all.

Screwed

A surprise strike by prison officers says The Guardian.

This is thoroughly illegal - whereas prison officers (workers in uniform, natch) have in the past organised sick outs, this is direct industrial action (and will probably see their Association hammered, pass the hat, comrades). Things must be sharp for prison officers to start considering a strike.

Although they'd been balloted, it looks like they didn't give proper notice of the strike.

This looks like the first strike against the paycut by inflation the government is trying to inflict.

Deutsche Zugarbeiter sollen streiken

First with the news as usual, much like here, it seems workers in Germany are getting a pay squeeze, and are doing something about it - read about today's train strike in Der Spiegel:

Rail unions Transnet and GDBA are calling for a 7 percent salary rise for about 134,000 employees. Deutsche Bahn has until now only offered two increases of 2 percent each, arguing that an excessive wage increase could put up to 9,000 jobs at risk. The strikes came after weekend talks between Deutsche Bahn and the two unions broke down.

I know whe we'rer striking we aren't winning, but solidarity demands some awareness: viel Gluck Gnossen!

Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism: Organized Capital vs. Organized Labor

Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism: Organized Capital vs. Organized Labor

And quote:

My preference is to get rid of Wagner, and Taft-Hartley, and the right-to-work laws, and the railway and other transport worker labor relations acts, all at once. But as I've said before, if we're simply choosing between forms of statism, I prefer the form of statism that is least onerous to me. If my only choices are between getting a jackboot in my face under the neoliberal version of statism favored by Reagan and Thatcher, and getting smothered with paternalism in the brave new world of social democracy, I'll take the latter any day. Old-style corporate liberalism and new-style neoliberalism represent two wings of organized capital. The corporate liberals are like a kindly farmer who thinks he can get more work out of his livestock in the long run by taking good care of them. The neoliberals, on the other hand, are like a farmer who thinks he'll come out ahead by working his livestock to death and then replacing them. If I'm going to be livestock, I know which farmer I'd prefer to live under.

relevent to recent themes methinks. Young Mr. Carson talks sense once more.