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Against Labor Fatalism

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I disagree with the bottom line of Ezra Klein’s analysis of the Wisconsin recall, but for somewhat different reasons than Erik and some other analysts I admire have expressed.   I think that to read Klein’s post as dismissive of or hostile to labor is erroneous, and is also not justified by Klein’s past writings.   He is, unusually for someone with a mainstream media pundit job, fully aware of the importance of labor unions not only for progressive politics generally but because of their importance to workers’ rights.    And unlike a lot of nominal liberal pundits, he understands that the decline of labor hurts all progressive politics generally.  “the legislative effect is, perhaps, more significant: It favors corporate interests in Congress, as Democrats will have to be that much more solicitous of business demands in order to keep from being spent into oblivion” is not any kind of neoliberal argument.   (I also, of course, agree that union organizing is reducible to electoral politics, but since nothing Klein writes says or implies otherwise, I’m not sure why we’re having that discussion.)

Klein’s point isn’t that Democrats should abandon labor or that labor isn’t important.  It’s a pro-campaign finance argument, not an anti-labor argument. But that’s not to say that I agree:

For a long time, a lot of the energy has been devoted to the question of “how do you revive the labor movement?” The truth is, at this point, you probably can’t. You can slow decline. And you can score isolated wins. But it’s hard to see a real turnaround in labor’s fortunes.

But if you take labor’s decline as a given, then another question presents itself: How do you limit the resulting corporate power over elections and legislators? And that’s much more possible, even in a post-Citizens United world. There’s legislation, like the Fair Elections Now Act, that could publicly finance elections. There’s legislation, like the DISCLOSE Act, that could force so much transparency on corporate spending that it ceases to be an attractive option.

Is this fatalism right? Perhaps, although I certainly hope not and progressive politics cannot proceed on that basis. But whether it’s true or not, I don’t agree that focusing on campaign finance is a remotely adequate substitute. The DISCLOSE Act is worthy legislation, but its effects would be very marginal; Republicans will find plenty of powerful interests willing to support them publicly, and the typical voter doesn’t pay attention to this kind of detail. Better disclosure than non-disclosure, but it’s not going to level the playing field. Public financing would be better, but — leaving aside the fact that it’s far from clear that it would survive Supreme Court review — an effective public financing law wouldn’t be any easier to pass than real pro-labor legislation.

I have no easy solution for reversing the structural decline of labor, and overcoming it will involve a lot of difficult electoral and non-electoral victories. But there’s no substitute for it, and one failed uphill battle is hardly a reason go give up.

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