A question on labor day. Why does the political left glorify labor and demonize capital?

[Tigerace117]

No, unions attacking replacement workers after they've walked off the job is violence.

Unlike their employers, the unions weren’t gunning down civilians left and right, which makes the protest laughable.

 

[Helix]

On a fine Tuesday 'round the water cooler, somewhere in America :

Joe : "Hey, Al, Ted. You guys have a good Labor Day?"

Al : "Yeah, you know. Grilled out with the family. Great weather. Tossed the ball with little Buster. I'll tell ya, kid's got a hell of an arm. You're gonna be seeing him pitching for the Yanks here in a few years. Boy, howdy."

Joe : "Damned right. How about you, Ted?"

Ted : "I SPENT THE DAY RESEARCHING HOW THE GLORIOUS PINKERTONS CRUSHED THE COMMIE LABOR MOVEMENT BECAUSE THOSE ASSHOLES HAD IT COMING AND AS FOR BUSTER HE'D BETTER DAMNED WELL BE HAPPY WITH HIS FARM LEAGUE SALARY THE GREEDY LITTLE BASTARD MONEY RUINED THE ****ING GAME AND WHARBLEGARBLE *(^*&%T*&%&^R&^$&^$&%^$&%^$^%!!!!!11111"

Joe : "Ok, Ted, sounds great. I have to go wax the back of my neck. See you around."

 

[phoenix2020]

Another lie.

The women and children that burned to death in the Ludlow Massacre where the mine owners brought in the military that then burned down the TENT ENCAMPMENTS of the miner families that had been kicked OUT of the company owned housing didn’t “attack” anyone.

They LEFT the company town. They left the company houses. They were in tent encampments - and the mine owners brought in the military and burned women and children alive in the tents.


Now please do tell us how the mine bosses were justified in burning women and children in tent encampments alive.

Needless to say. @aociswundumho will ignore this example since it is inconvenient for his narrative.

 

[Tigerace117]

On a fine Tuesday 'round the water cooler, somewhere in America :

Joe : "Hey, Al, Ted. You guys have a good Labor Day?"

Al : "Yeah, you know. Grilled out with the family. Great weather. Tossed the ball with little Buster. I'll tell ya, kid's got a hell of an arm. You're gonna be seeing him pitching for the Yanks here in a few years. Boy, howdy."

Joe : "Damned right. How about you, Ted?"

Ted : "I SPENT THE DAY RESEARCHING HOW THE GLORIOUS PINKERTONS CRUSHED THE COMMIE LABOR MOVEMENT BECAUSE THOSE ASSHOLES HAD IT COMING AND AS FOR BUSTER HE'D BETTER DAMNED WELL BE HAPPY WITH HIS FARM LEAGUE SALARY THE GREEDY LITTLE BASTARD MONEY RUINED THE ****ING GAME AND WHARBLEGARBLE *(^*&%T*&%&^R&^$&^$&%^$&%^$^%!!!!!11111"

Joe : "Ok, Ted, sounds great. I have to go wax the back of my neck. See you around."

Being a Yankees fan may actually be worse than a Pinkerton fanboy

It’s a damn shame too, because by all accounts Allan did everything in his power to protect Lincoln.

 

[noonereal]

I have no idea why the far-left hates billionaires,

Pretty sad that you can't figure this out

 

[Helix]

Being a Yankees fan may actually be worse than a Pinkerton fanboy

It’s a damn shame too, because by all accounts Allan did everything in his power to protect Lincoln.

The sports people can argue that part out.

 

[Peacenik]

It makes no sense. Consider this typical "pro-worker" quote:



If raw labor were all that mattered, the hardest-working societies would be the richest. They're not. What actually drives prosperity is the combination of capital, innovation, and free trade. Money and capital do create work by funding tools and factories, and startups. A farmers labor feeds his family, but it's the tractor bought with capital that feeds a city. Note also that the more labor we can replace with machines, the richer and better off we become.



The bold gets it completely backwards. People don't exist to serve trade and industry - trade and industry exist to serve people. And the proof is plain: in capitalist societies, ordinary people are both the richest and the freest. Socialists can only spout empty platitudes, but when it comes to results, capitalists win every time.

This seems to be an attempt to say the most unpopular thing on Labor Day.

Labor Day arose during the gilded age when some capitalists became very rich, and many workers became very poor. Unfair monopolies had to be broken up with the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Capitalists would either buyout competition to create a monopoly to jack up consumer prices or make deals with one another to fix prices high and not undersell one another for the purpose or ripping off the public. Consumers and workers were being systematically ripped off. Congress decided that was unfair business practice and made that illegal.

Workers had to form unions to have enough clout to negotiate with capitalists who wanted to take advantage of them through constant threats to fire them and replace them with lower paid new workers desperate to have any job at all because jacked up consumer prices required a certain income level to have basic comforts in life such as a home and access to water and heat. Maybe a few luxuries like candles and lamp oil.

 

[Peacenik]

Using an Adolf Hitler quote to represent labor is ridiculous.

 

[Pyrite]

It makes no sense. Consider this typical "pro-worker" quote:



If raw labor were all that mattered, the hardest-working societies would be the richest. They're not. What actually drives prosperity is the combination of capital, innovation, and free trade. Money and capital do create work by funding tools and factories, and startups. A farmers labor feeds his family, but it's the tractor bought with capital that feeds a city. Note also that the more labor we can replace with machines, the richer and better off we become.



The bold gets it completely backwards. People don't exist to serve trade and industry - trade and industry exist to serve people. And the proof is plain: in capitalist societies, ordinary people are both the richest and the freest. Socialists can only spout empty platitudes, but when it comes to results, capitalists win every time.

It's possible to be both pro-labor and pro-capitalism.

This isn't an either / or situation.

 

[Pyrite]

For the benefit of other posters, would you please provide the source for these quotes?

Post #40

Sure:

Adolf Hitler's Speech to the Workers of Berlin (10 December 1940) - Wikisource, the free online library

en.wikisource.org

Post #43

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Good catch, @Felis Leo.

Thanks.

 

[Michael Cole]

Pretty sad that you can't figure this out

Hatred is something I'll never figure out. I consider that rational, not sad.

 

[Felis Leo]

Sure:

Adolf Hitler's Speech to the Workers of Berlin (10 December 1940) - Wikisource, the free online library

en.wikisource.org

Ah. So you were engaged in bad-faith posturing. I do not see how this is a "typical pro-labor quote."

First, no unions or labor organizers in the United States cite Adolf Hitler or the National Socialists, either in their speeches or praise their policies. And that is because, second, among their many horrible features, the National Socialists were not pro-labor. They sided with industrialists and wealthy people constantly, and industrialists bribed their way into the good graces of the Nazi Party, often by buying a membership into the "Circle of Friends of the Economy" organized by the high-ranking SS leader Wilhelm Keppler.

 

[aociswundumho]

Labor Day arose during the gilded age when some capitalists became very rich, and many workers became very poor.

That's completely false. Wages drastically increased during the guilded age:

It was a time of rapid economic growth, especially in the Northern and Western United States. As American wages grew much higher than those in Europe, especially for skilled workers, and industrialization demanded an increasingly skilled labor force, the period saw an influx of millions of European immigrants. The rapid expansion of industrialization led to real wage growth of 40% from 1860 to 1890 and spread across the increasing labor force. The average annual wage per industrial worker, including men, women, and children, rose from $380 in 1880 ($12,381 in 2024 dollars[1]) to $584 in 1890 ($19,738 in 2024 dollars[1]), a gain of 59%

 

[aociswundumho]

Ah. So you were engaged in bad-faith posturing. I do not see how this is a "typical pro-labor quote."

Anyone can read it and see that it is extremely pro-labor.

First, no unions or labor organizers cite Adolf Hitler or the National Socialists, either in their speeches or in their policies. And that is because, second, the National Socialists were not pro-labor.

I know. See my sig file.

The Nazis treated the workers no better or worse than any other socialist state.

 

[RF667799]

Unlike their employers, the unions weren’t gunning down civilians left and right, which makes the protest laughable.

Union labor's hands aren't clean in those matters. Scabs have often been dealt with harshly.

 

[Peacenik]

That's completely false. Wages drastically increased during the guilded age:

Selective quote. It leaves off the very next sentence:

"The Gilded Age was also an era of significant poverty, especially in the South, and growing inequality, as millions of immigrants poured into the United States, and the high concentration of wealth became more visible and contentious."

And the next two paragraphs further elaborate how people were ripped off:

"Railroads were the major growth industry, with the factory system, oil, mining, and finance increasing in importance. Immigration from Europe and the Eastern United States led to the rapid growth of the West based on farming, ranching, and mining. Labor unions became increasingly important in the rapidly growing industrial cities. Two major nationwide depressions—the Panic of 1873 and the Panic of 1893—interrupted growth and caused social and political upheavals.

The South remained economically devastated after the American Civil War. The South's economy became increasingly tied to commodities like food and building materials, cotton for thread and fabrics, and tobacco production, all of which suffered from low prices. With the end of the Reconstruction era in 1877 and the rise of Jim Crow laws, African American people in the South were stripped of political power and voting rights, and were left severely economically disadvantaged."

 

[KevinKohler]

It makes no sense. Consider this typical "pro-worker" quote:



If raw labor were all that mattered, the hardest-working societies would be the richest. They're not. What actually drives prosperity is the combination of capital, innovation, and free trade. Money and capital do create work by funding tools and factories, and startups. A farmers labor feeds his family, but it's the tractor bought with capital that feeds a city. Note also that the more labor we can replace with machines, the richer and better off we become.



The bold gets it completely backwards. People don't exist to serve trade and industry - trade and industry exist to serve people. And the proof is plain: in capitalist societies, ordinary people are both the richest and the freest. Socialists can only spout empty platitudes, but when it comes to results, capitalists win every time.

Supply doesn't create demand. Making something doesn't mean all the sudden demand comes into existence for that thing you've made. The US patent office is full of working, viable inventions that no one wants.

And if you DO make something for which there is desire, real demand is dictated by the ability of the people who desire that thing to purchase it.

 

[aociswundumho]

Selective quote. It leaves off the very next sentence:

Because I was addressing your claim, which was specifically about wages.

 

[Felis Leo]

Anyone can read it and see that it is extremely pro-labor.

So what? Hitler was a liar. He was anti-labor union and was pro-industrialist in both word and deed. Why not cite actual labor organizers who actually fought for worker's rights and bettered their working conditions, rather than a disingenuous, murderous totalitarian dictator?

Your point does not work as well against someone like Mary G. Harris Jones. Well, it does not work at all, actually.

I know. See my sig file.

The Nazis treated the workers no better or worse than any other socialist state.

That is irrelevant to the point you made. You were talking about why the political left glorifies labor and demonizes capital. Not the nature of socialist states. Which Nazi Germany was not.

 

[aociswundumho]

And if you DO make something for which there is desire, real demand is dictated by the ability of the people who desire that thing to purchase it.

Capitalism is the only system that continually raises people's purchasing power. Under socialism, everyone is equally poor, standing in bread lines with their ration book. Under capitalism, wages rise with productivity, and competition drives prices down. That's why today an ordinary person has access to food, medicine, cars, and computers that kings and emperors of the past couldnt even have dreamed of.

 

[Luce]

The guilded age was a great time for America.

Well, it's a good thing your posts didn't have credibility to start with, or this would have killed it.

 

[Luce]

Then quit.



Private security is needed when the former workers won't get off the property and physically attack other workers. The violence is always initiated by the unions.

 

[aociswundumho]

So what? Hitler was a liar. He was anti-labor union and was pro-industrialist in both word and deed.

He was not anti-union. From mein kampf:

In the present state of affairs I am convinced that we cannot possibly
dispense with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the
most important institutions in the economic life of the nation. Not only
are they important in the sphere of social policy but also, and even
more so, in the national political sphere. For when the great masses of
a nation see their vital needs satisfied through a just trade unionist
movement the stamina of the whole nation in its struggle for existence
will be enormously reinforced thereby.

 

[KevinKohler]

Capitalism is the only system that continually raises people's purchasing power. Under socialism, everyone is equally poor, standing in bread lines with their ration book. Under capitalism, wages rise with productivity, and competition drives prices down. That's why today an ordinary person has access to food, medicine, cars, and computers that kings and emperors of the past couldnt even have dreamed of.

I dont disagree with this, however, it doesn't refuted or disprove what I said.

 

[Felis Leo]

He was not anti-union. From mein kampf:

Yes. And then he took over and abolished all the labor unions in the country and imprisoned and executed trade union leaders. Workers were forced to join the state-run German Labor Front, which was pro-capital.

Holocaust Memorial Day Trust | 2 May 1933: Dissolution of German Trade Unions

On 2 May 1933, just three months after Adolf Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor of Germany, the SA and police occupied the offices of German Trade Unions, seizing control of them.

hmd.org.uk

This is a matter of indisputable public historical record. You might as make the claim that Hitler did not hate Jews.