Cliopatria Award
I am deeply honored to learn that my This Day in Labor History series has won this year’s History News Network Cliopatria Award for “Best Series of Posts.” According to HNN:
In “This Day in Labor History” Erik Loomis of Lawyers, Guns & Money documents significant moments in labor and working class history, moving back through time to slavery and drawing attention to anti-union campaigns in the 20th century. This excellent series highlights labor organizing, strikes, and anti-labor violence with state sponsored union-busting foregrounded. By showcasing the messiness of past labor disputes, Loomis provides case studies to show the rich historical variance of these events and how these “days” shaped later attitudes and policies about American labor. The series is both well-written and provocative.
Last year, the New York Times’ Disunion series won this award.
I am beyond honored to even be considered for such an award, not to mention winning it.
I for one have genuinely enjoyed the labor history posts. Kudos.
Alan Tomlinson
I’ve also enjoyed these immensely. Keep up the good work.
3rd!
And congratulations!
It’s a well deserved honor.
4th (or 18th or whatever)
Fully deserved.
Huzzah. Haven’t commented on the labor posts but have definitely enjoyed them.
Now that LGM joins ranks with the Grey Lady, can we expect a token center-right dispenser of Beltway wisdom like David Brooks? Mike Tierney might be available…
Hurrah! Well deserved!
Now that you blew up, don’t throw the little people under the bus!
And answer my follow up questions, damnit! :) I’m still jonesing for some insight on Perot! Stop piquing my interest and then leaving me hanging!
Usually when I don’t answer questions it means that I don’t know and don’t want to embarrass myself.
Come come! Embarrassment is two thirds of greatness!
In any case, I’m grateful for the series and very pleased it got recognition.
That is awesome! Congrats!
That’s really terrific. Congratulations! They have been extremely enlightening and very well written.
Congratulations, Erik! Well done! And good on the HNN for recognizing the quality of your work – confirming the judgment of your loyal readers.
Well done!
Congratulations. The Labor posts have been enjoyable to read and informative. Not surprisingly, I wasn’t taught much about the Labor movement in high school or college.
Congratulations! Well deserved.
The posts have been excellent, Erik, but beware the tenticles of the Kochtopus. It will break down your defenses with false praise.
Kochtopus!
In all seriousness, though, libertarians need all the reeducation on labor history that they can get (as do I).
Your series has been exceptional without fail, and this is evidence that that excellence is crossing a bridge that is needing some serious traffic.
Kudos!
Congratulations – well deserved!
Good for you!
The series is a great opportunity for readers to learn what our ancestors went through to get the eight our day, the right to organize, and so on.
Erik, congratulations! Given the richness and breadth of the series, I can’t say I’m surprised. Keep ‘em coming, brother.
Congratulations, and thank you.
Congratulations. I usually read those posts in Google Reader, and rarely comment on them, so I don’t know if the usual metrics are properly capturing their value. Good for HNN for trying.
Also they aren’t just ancient history, but what our country would look like now if not for unions and the government, and what it will look like if economic conservatives (including neoliberals) have their way.
The HNN is very libertarian and explicitly praised Loomis for highlighting the negative effect government has had on labor.
Which the government did at the behest of capital. While governments normally promotes and protects the interests of the powerful, it is in a democracy the only potential institution which can, and sometimes does, intervene to effectively protect the interests of the poor and working classes. It is a necessary counterbalance to the Kochs, Waltons, Bank of Americas, and the rest.
Ironically, HNN likely exists largely due to George Mason’s Koch connections.
I do agree with everything you said, I just think when you get to governments the size of the US Federal government, democracy only shines through when people act in spite of the government.
As the government gains more economic power and more agents to administer that power, the democratic voice is muffled. The will of the people is rapidly replaced with the will of the agents of the state.
You end up with stuff like this:
https://www.ebtaccount.jpmorgan.com/JPM_EFS/
Where all social welfare comes at rent paid to the agents of the state. The cycle builds where the state continually sells the public on the goods and services it must provide, and those who administer those services become privileged members of society.
Then the conflict comes to a head, people start branching out into non-state forms of democracy and political advocacy and they get some form of shot, beaten, and pepper sprayed.
Doesn’t this just fly in the face of things like voting rights enforcement?
Social Security and Medicare, aside from lifting the elderly from poverty, gives them leisure and ability to participate in politics.
Etc.
I don’t think you can even get to “generally”, here. The feds do good things and bad things. To echo Socrates, the power to do good comes with the power to do bad.
But because the Federal government has to be somewhat cosmopolitan, arguably it has a better shot at being (constrainedly, i.e., minority right respectingly) democratic.
Also, when you have ginormous non-governmental power structures (like big companies) you often need a comparably sized counterweight.
“Government” is a tool. “Government” doesn’t do anything by itself.
“Government” is a tool.
That’s what Brad’s been saying all along.
Tools always carry incentives, however.
A microwave is a tool, for example, that doesn’t cook anything unless I put something in there and press buttons.
But that microwave does have profound effects on my behavior and preferences.
It is also important to point out that, if you have two enemies and one hammer, the one farthest away isn’t going to get to use that tool and will probably get his head smashed in for trying.
but the effect depends on whose using the tool. The tool of government is supposed to be wielded by the people of the US, not just the very rich. That it currently isn’t, does not mean the solution is reducing government because that results in the same overall effect as the government being run of, by, and for the rich.
I already explained above why I think the size of government and its responsiveness to democratic pressure are inversely related.
But for the government to be a useful tool for the people, it has to be large enough to counter the power of the rich. Your policies would simply eviscerate it and compound the problem.
Joe is a master when it comes to being a tool.
HNN is non-partisan and offers opinions from a very wide range of political and historical positions.
Very wide.
I should read it more often. The only big thing I can recall reading on it before was a Neiwart-curated symposium trashing Liberal Fascism (Goldberg’s response essay is truly something to behold), which doesn’t seem to lend credence to the “very libertarian” label.
Well, first it is “George Mason University’s History News Network”, and GMU is heavily funded by the Koch Brothers, to the point that its economics department is more of a libertarian think-tank.
Second I read mostly the Liberty and Power blog from the HNN cause that includes these libertarians that I really enjoy:
Robert Higgs
David Beito
Anthony Gregory
Wendy McElroy
Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
Steven Horwitz
Roderick Long
Ralph Raico
Wendy McElroy
Sheldon Richman
Cliopatria isn’t quite as easy to label because it deals with history and rarely branches into politics, but the blogger on there who is most prone to branch into politics, Chris Bray, is very libertarian.
Fair enough. I mostly just wanted an excuse to link to Goldberg, who is always amusing.
Shorter Goldberg rebuttal:
No doubt, but it should say something that, when summarizing the series, it said:
Yes, accuracy is a good thing.
The award citations are written by the award committees. The award committees are chosen independently by the award committee chairs who are invited to serve by the very independent-minded Ralph Luker, of Cliopatria.
There is no editorial guidance involved, I assure you.
Well done, and well-deserved, Erik.
I always look forward to and read your “This day” posts with great interest.
If only someone would do a similar series on something like, say, battleships. . .
It’s well-deserved, Erik. You’re making a very important, overlooked subject available and comprehensible to a lot of people.
Congratulations on a job well done, like others here, I have really enjoyed the posts and think it is important to more widely disseminate this kind of information.
Congratulations.
Why I read this blog in its entirety and most others not at all.
Congrats, Erik.
Paul Campos appears to have won that Lawyer of the Year thing, barring any internet jiggery pokery. This blog should have its own trophy case.
Congratulations, Erik.
Congrats! Well deserved,
Nicely done, Erik.
Congratulations!
HNN is worth it for excellence in pie graphs.
[...] This Day in Labor History: January 5, 1970 [ 0 ] January 5, 2012 | Erik Loomis var addthis_product = 'wpp-262'; var addthis_config = {"data_track_clickback":true,"data_track_addressbar":false};if (typeof(addthis_share) == "undefined"){ addthis_share = [];}I had planned this post for months so it’s total coincidence that it is going up the morning after this series won the Cliopatria. [...]
Congratulations. An injury to one is an injury to all (and damn nearly all need to be reminded).
YAY!
Hometown boy makes good!
Congrats.
Do we get advanced credit for this?
Congratulations!
It’s richly deserved. Heartiest congratulations.
Congrats! A big fan of this series since you started writing it. It’s an indictment of mainstream media that some of the most informative articles to be found on labor history shared by millions are on a mere blog. If only a fraction of the space the NY Times dedicates to fashion trends were so well employed, we might all be more educated on these issues.
I think we’re up to three and some fraction of Clipatria winners at LGM now, since Dave and I won it in 2008 at Edge of the American West.
I’m not saying to diminish Erik’s accomplishment, but to admonish our non-awarding-winning-cob-loggers to get their cabins in order.
Congratulations, Erik!
Excellent, congrats! They’re my favorite LGM posts for sharing on Twitter. =)
Congratulations, truly well deserved and a long welcome addition to this fine blog.
Congratulations Erik, way to go!