I have watched the unfolding saga in Wisconsin with stunned amazement, augmented by similar things happening in Ohio, Indiana, and elsewhere. I was amazed at the decency and ingenuity of the Egyptian activist who called a Madison pizza parlor, ordered a pizza for the protesters, and started a global wave of calls ordering pizza for these brave people. Meanwhile, the perfidy, intellectual and moral bankruptcy, and powers behind Gov. Scott Walker are coming clearer by the hour. Even if he somehow succeeds in getting his unholy grail of stripping away collective bargaining rights by using a fiscal crisis that he created, his political career is over. The only real question is how much of the GOP he will drag down with him.
And on a side note Wisconsin, someone recently pointed out that Wisconsin’s entire budget shortfall that plagues that state’s budget could be solved by bringing home 150 troops from Afghanistan.
But the whole argument over unions and the accusation that unionized public employees make more money than their private sector counterparts (they don’t), or that unions created the economic collapse we see happening around us (they didn’t) masks what I think it a basic philosophical difference or, perhaps more accurately, a mythical difference. I use the word “myth” in the sense of a narrative about how the world is or ought to be. The conservatives ranged against the unionists hold to an idea that one’s success depends on “rugged individualism” and individual initiative, i.e., the bootstrap myth. Now the bootstrap myth does contain a grain of truth. Hard work and inventiveness is vital for success. However, as they say in mathematics, it is necessary but not sufficient. It also doesn’t work that way. Going it alone takes longer and has a lower possibility of success than collaborations and community efforts.
Here’s what I find interesting: the supporters of Gov. Walker and his kind are trying to reduce the rest of us to the point where the bootstrap option is all we’ve got. And they are doing this because they want to disempower those who might take exception to how they run things that impact our daily lives. It is proof, as if any more were needed, that the Lone Boostraper is the conservative counterpart to the Welfare Queen driving her Caddy to pick up her check–and just as mythical.
But here I have to do a little bit of re-appraisal. I’ve talked in recent posts about developing a personal set of skills and how the Generalist can win through where the specialist might have a harder time of it. And it occurs to me that this could be construed as a variation on the bootstrap myth. It isn’t. The difference is communities, whether it be small circles of friends helping each other or a Common Security Club. The other difference is that I believe that we must have a significant government presence in our lives for the general citizenry to enjoy healthy, productive lives. We must have universal health care, quality public education, sound infrastructure and many other things that government can clearly provide, and that includes a place for unions working to safeguard the rights of the worker.
