One thing I’ve noticed is that unions and mid-level beaureaucrats spark more ire among conservatives than special corporate interests who lobby for government bailouts/protection. I’m not foreign to this feeling.
Whenever I hear about Citigroup being bailed out, only a lukewarm feeling comes from the issue. I know it’s wrong and a massive moral hazard but meh.
Whenever some good-for-nothing member of a Teachers Union comes on TV to hypocritically say how it’s all about the childern, I change the channel or risk blowing a nerve in a temper tantrum.
Maybe its that the unions are bigger hypocrites, but do you also happen to have this preference in levels of disgust? Why do you think it is?
I think the phrase I highlighted above is the operative one. Conservatives don’t typically consider corporations to be “good for nothing”, but do typically consider union members and mid-level bureaucrats to be such.
I have more sympathy to unions than corporate interests (although I do believe unions are typically organizational disasters and tend to decrease social welfare).
On a related note, I’m also always disappointed when proposed budget cuts are for social programs (e.g., literacy promotion) and not corporate interests (e.g., defense contracts). For some reason, it seems like Republicans / Tea Partyists don’t mind the “social justice” aspect of what is usually cut (yes, I know the term “social justice” is irredeemably fucked, but you know what I mean).
Definitely corporate interests, not because of anything they did, but because people are dumb enough to think they represent free market capitalism no matter what shenanigans they are pulling.
I’m the same way, DMI. Corporate interests do more damage, no question, but I probably get more annoyed by unions because of all the rhetoric. I’m more sympathetic to “left” causes in general, but find myself far more annoyed with rhetoric on the left than on the right. It tends to be more emotional and imprecise, or is at least more overtly so; it’s a lot of nebulous terms saying not much of anything.
I particularly hate the simplistic narrative that it’s the corporate state versus the workers (unions), as if unions were to the benefit of all workers everywhere. Unions are interest groups like corporate industries; unions benefit union members, at the expense of other workers and the consumer.
I don’t get as pissed off when corporations manipulate the system to their advantage because that is exactly what I would expect from a self-interested entity.
What pisses me off is the people who steal my money and then just hand it over to the special interests.
I would argue to the OP that the types of unions that must be objected to (the ones co-opted by the state) end up very well being run like corporations, or at least corporate entities in play with the state, if not similarily like other arms of the state.
To me, they can often look like one and the same, but working under two different but vital covers to further political axis confusion: unions operating under the guise of worker’s solidarity, corporations operating under the guise of the free-market.
Their deceptions are of the same sort, the goal of course being the same (i.e. ensuring their piece of the state pie via monopoly, whether it’s on top or on bottom with connections to the top).
Of course, most of the time the unions and corporatists are on the same side with regard to taking your money. They only occasionally sprawl over who gets the loot.
Bureaucracies (also know as public workers unions) and big corporate interests go hand in hand. The difference between them is dialectic: the bureaucrats can always appeal to the “common good”, “the children” or even guilt feelings while big “evil” corporations cannot. Also corporations, bailouts aside, rip you off through legislation while bureaucrats just help themselves straight from your wallet.
I can assure you I am completely super partes: my contempt (which, as I grow older, is turning into downright hatred) extends to both parties in equal measure.