No, I’m saying that if transparency is an attack, the way it would be an attack is because union members don’t agree with how the unions are spending their money. If the membership is in agreement, transparency isn’t an attack. I’m not claiming transparency is an attack. Henry is.

What I’m stating – and I’ll state it again – is that (a) purportedly pro-transparency reforms can be used as a means of making it far harder for unions to take political stances that are in the interests of their members through increasing paperwork etc, (b) that transparency will greatly help the opponents of unions (who labour under no similar requirements) in antagonistic political bargaining situations, (c) that the devil of regulations of this sort is in the detail of their implementation, and (d)that the evidence from implementation of the supposedly pro-labour regulations of the NLRB gives us strong reason to believe that Republicans will seek to implement these regulations as to hurt trade unions as political actors. You may disagree with this argument.

Good freaking heavens, you finally discovered the basis of real argumentation instead of ad hominem attacking. Before we switch gears I would like to strenuously note that this has not previously been the topic of conversation, though I am happy to actually engage in the argument about substance. I’m thrilled we finally got to this point. The deeply unfortunate part is that we could have spent the past four days talking about this if you didn’t think that ad hominem attacks were arguments.

(a) purportedly pro-transparency reforms can be used as a means of making it far harder for unions to take political stances that are in the interests of their members through increasing paperwork etc

Can be used? Sure, in theory. Any strong evidence that the paperwork is so unbelievably onerous as to do this? It is almost certain that unions keep track of payments already. If they don’t, there is even more serious trouble and likelyhood of corruption than we have previously discussed. Furthermore the kind of spending we are talking about rarely occurs at the local unit level—almost always at the state or national level. The idea that such large organizations can’t track their money and then disclose it is almost laughable. The national organizations are certainly large enough to handle this kind of issue. If they don’t track it now, there is a serious accountability problem. If they do, they can disclose it. Also, is this the crux of the issue? Would a mere reduction in the amount of paperwork swing you into agreement?

that transparency will greatly help the opponents of unions (who labour under no similar requirements) in antagonistic political bargaining situations

You’ll have to be specific about how you think this works. Are you afraid that outsiders will appeal to union members using the information? This comes back to union member autonomy, if the members don’t like the information it seems very likely that the unions aren’t representing them well.

(c) that the devil of regulations of this sort is in the detail of their implementation

Well there is a tautology. Any details of implementation you want to express particular concern about? Or are you just assuming their existance based on whatever you would call the certainly not demonization of Republicans?

d) that the evidence from implementation of the supposedly pro-labour regulations of the NLRB gives us strong reason to believe that Republicans will seek to implement these regulations as to hurt trade unions as political actors.

Ok. Once again this is pretty cryptic. The job of the NLRB isn’t to be a purely pro-union cheerleader. “The NLRB’s primary mission is:
(a) Preventing and remedying unfair labor practices by employers or unions, and (b) Holding elections at which employees decide if they wish to be represented by unions.

Republicans may very well use transparency regulations to hurt unions as political actors. Information—especially information that union members end up hating is probably useful for that purpose. But that is the problem for your argument isn’t it? Transparency makes sense as ‘an attack’ principally when union members wouldn’t agree with union expenditures if revealed.

“I’m not trying to demonize Republicans – I am saying that their interests are opposed to those of trade unions and of individual union members.”

You really seem to have trouble with the distinction. Republicans don’t like the current form of trade unions. That has very little if anything to do with opposing the interests of individual members—many of whom seem perfectly content to vote for Republicans.

What precisely do you object to in this sentence:

So far as I can tell most of the people here (including you) think that (framing it uncharitably) forcing people to join trade unions, extracting their money and forcing them to use it for political gamesmanship that they don’t like while obscuring exactly where the money is going, is peachy keen as long as it is benefiting the left.

Do you object to forcing people to join trade unions? Nope. Do you object to extracting money from those forced? Nope. Do you object to unions using that money for political gamesmanship? Hell no. In fact a huge worry is that such expenditures might decrease. Do you object to obscuring where the money is spent? Nope. You worry that if it were revealed it could be used by mysterious opponents of unions in politically sensitive bargaining. (You glide over the fact that such use would most likely be revelation of how the union expenditures clash with the desires of the union members). Is it the benefiting the left part that you object to? Seems like a very likely conjecture. But if it makes you happy I’ll omit that part only. Though I admit it seems weird that you would also support all those things if they benefit the right.

So the really simplified version of your theory is “if union members knew what their leaders were doing they’d make them give money to Republicans instead?” I’m all in favor of transparency, but your implicit conclusion as to what transparency would result in is a bit implausible there.

Your specific claim

“Republicans are interested in unions that are more politically effective AT REPRESENTING THEIR MEMBERS because Democrats have created a system where unions get to squeeze money out of Republican union members for Democratic fund-raising.”

As I’ve argued repeatedly and at length, this claim is untrue. The Republican party manifestly doesn’t have an interest in furthering the interests of union members qua union members, regardless of whether or not the unions in question are corrupt, or are not corrupt. I don’t deny that there is often a difference between union members’ interests and the interests of unions. What I do claim is (a) that the interests of union members are best represented by a politically powerful union movement, and (b) that the interests (and sincere beliefs)of Republicans lead them inevitably to oppose a politically powerful union movement. You can disagree with (a) – but then you are arguing either that union members are better off when unions are weak, or that union members are better off when they’re not union members at all. You further have to explain how it is in the interests of union members not to have collective means of fighting back when faced with powerful actors in radically unequal bargaining situations (viz. Walmart). If you want to disagree with (b) you’re going to have to come up with some strong countervailing evidence that shows instances in which the modern Republican party has sought to strengthen the labour movement rather than business. Given that the overwhelming preponderance of evidence points in the other direction, you’re going to have your work cut out for you. You’re also going to have to explain how the only major trade union that the Republicans have had friendly relations with over the last forty years has been the Teamsters, with the notable exception of the brief period under which the Teamsters was under the control of reformists.

Again, as stated repeatedly, I have no objection as such to increased transparency in the trade union movement. How could I? What I’m stating – and I’ll state it again – is that (a) purportedly pro-transparency reforms can be used as a means of making it far harder for unions to take political stances that are in the interests of their members through increasing paperwork etc, (b) that transparency will greatly help the opponents of unions (who labour under no similar requirements) in antagonistic political bargaining situations, (c) that the devil of regulations of this sort is in the detail of their implementation, and (d)that the evidence from implementation of the supposedly pro-labour regulations of the NLRB gives us strong reason to believe that Republicans will seek to implement these regulations as to hurt trade unions as political actors. You may disagree with this argument. But where do you get off claiming (to quote from some of your comments above) that:

So far as I can tell most of the people here (including you) think that (framing it uncharitably) forcing people to join trade unions, extracting their money and forcing them to use it for political gamesmanship that they don’t like while obscuring exactly where the money is going, is peachy keen as long as it is benefiting the left.

you like being able to leverage people against their own preferences so long as you get to force them along the path you like.

You don’t want that lie to be revealed. That is why you absolutely will not engage the proposal.

Ad-hominem slurs don’t substitute for arguments – and half-withdrawing them and then setting them out again is pretty poor form. I’ve provided substantial evidence that the Republican party does indeed oppose the political power of trade unions, and indeed the economic interests of individual trade union members when these interests clash (as they must) with those of firms. Nor is this an ad hominem – as I’ve said, I’m quite happy to accept that this may sometimes stem from sincere beliefs about what is in the general interest – Barry Goldwater is widely conceded to have been one of the most individually decent people in politics in the last fifty years. I’m not trying to demonize Republicans – I am saying that their interests are opposed to those of trade unions and of individual union members. And I’m providing evidence. But it does seem that you’re trying to demonize me. Let’s see either some evidence that I am indeed trying to compel people to join trade unions, to force people to do things that they don’t want to do, and to cover up lies, and if you don’t have that evidence, a proper retraction seems to me the decent thing to do.

I’ve said that (1) your claim that Republicans have the political interests of unions at heart is bullshit – and it is. You’ve continually tried to duck the issue of whether or not (2)Republicans are opposed to trade unions’ ability to represent their members’ interests politically – (3)which they self-evidently are, regardless or not of whether these unions are linked to the Democratic party. (4)The trade union movement has interests which are strongly opposed to those of key business actors, such as Walmart, whom the Republicans support, and who in turn support the Republicans. Are you denying this? (5)At this stage I’m going to stop trying to be fair – there is something fishy, unpleasant and disturbing about your effort to play defence for a political party that is quite openly opposed to the trade union movement, that has sought to create ad-hoc alliances with the most corrupt elements that movement, and that has persistently tried to forward an agenda that guts trade union power.

Claim number 1, I do not make. I have repeatedly distinguished my view from that. At this point I just leave it to other readers to decide if I have done so because you are clearly incapable noticing the distinction between unions and union members.

Which brings us to claim number 2 (Republicans are opposed to trade unions’ ability to represent their members’ interests politically) has two problems in your analysis of it.

A) It is NOT the same as claim number one, though you appear to use the two claims interchangeably. Unions and union members are not identical categories.

B) So far as it applies to the proposal at hand, it is clearly false. The ‘attack’ on unions which you are complaining about attempts to allow union members to find out where their money is going. As such it supports the ability of union members to find out how unions are ‘representing’ (scare quotes oh so intentional) union members’ interests. If that turns out to be an attack on unions (the institution) it can only be effective because the institution has been representing the interests of its members in a fashion that its members don’t like very much.

Claim number 3 has serious problems because claim number 2 is false. Unions, especially corrupt unions are not identical to their members, nor do they have identical interests. I have specifically distinguished between the two when talking about the issue and you have repeatedly conflated them. At first I thought I wasn’t clear, now I suspect you choose to pretend I have not made the distinction because your argument is piss-poor if you have to deal with it.

4) Why would I deny this? But it doesn’t do nearly the work you seem to think it does because you seem to think it is obvious that trade unions who are opposing business interests automatically are also advancing workers’ interests. Was opposing a war against Saddam automatically advancing Saddam’s interests? I don’t think you want to go down that road.

5) The idea that you were ever being fair to my argument reveals either serious self-deception, cynical rhetorical gamesmanship, or a complete lack of understanding of my argument. For simplicity:

Proposal X may be good or bad no matter who proposes it.

If you are suspicious of the person proposing it, that may cause you to examine X a bit more carefully.

Nevertheless, the mere fact that you are suspicious of the proposer’s motives is not at all a good argument against the proposal X.

Not trusting someone’s motives is not a good policy argument.

The proposal X for the purposes of this discussion, is good for accountability to union members. The extent to which it is bad for union institutions is wholly dependent on how well those institutions have actually been representing the interests of the union members.

Please note that despite your attack on me: “there is something fishy, unpleasant and disturbing about your effort to play defence for a political party that is quite openly opposed to the trade union movement” there is nowhere in the above argument a defense of a political party. I acheive this not be reformulating my argument, but by the virtue of it never having been a part of my argument in the first place.

Which brings me back to: “Sebastian – please point to one instance – just one- in this dialogue where I’ve made a claim that was an ad-hominem attack.”

Your entire argument is an ad-hominem attack. The very definition of an ad-hominem attack is an attack on the person as if it were a logical attack on the argument. The whole thrust of these two pieces is (and I paraphrase, but the rest of the readers may judge whether or not it is unfairly) ‘Republicans are proposing something about unions. They are people who don’t have union interests in mind. Therefore I will not talk about the merits of the proposal but will dismiss them out of hand since they are being proposed by Republicans.’ The “therefore” is a classic example of ad-hominem argumentation. You attack the proposal BY attacking the one making the proposal. You have repeated it in the main post of both threads, and in every response to me.

Henry, here’s all you say in that comment:

A comparison that might make things just a little bit clearer to you – paying taxes is a good thing, and occasional audits of tax payers are a necessary means to this. But do you really, seriously, want to argue that when J. Edgar Hoover started getting his political opponents audited, that this was a good thing too by extension? Come off it mate.

More to the point, do you consider Sarbanes-Oxley to be bad for business? Surely the argument in its favor is that it strengthens corporations, by reassuring investors that they have accurate financial information about the companies they’re investing in. Why wouldn’t strict oversight of unions enhance their credibility in the same way?

You are calling me on a claim I’m not making. I’m making the claim that Republicans are advocating reforms which will force unions to act more in accordance with the desires of unions’ own members. This is important because union membership in certain sectors is effectively mandatory. Every time I make that claim you reiterate that Republicans are attacking unions.

“But the claim that Republicans have an interest in making unions more politically effective is self-evident and quite preposterous bullshit.”

This is now the third time I have directly responded to this claim. I did so twice in the other post. The problem is your definition of ‘politically effective’. A huge part of politically effective is REPRESENTING your membership.

Republicans are very interested in making it possible for union members to find out what unions are doing with their money—that is the main thrust of the proposal which sparked these two posts. I have freely admitted that this is because unions are almost certainly representing their membership in ways that their members do not like. If the revelation of how unions are spending its members’ money constitutes “an attack on unions” the current claim of unions to “represent” its members is revealed to be a lie.

You don’t want that lie to be revealed.

That is why you absolutely will not engage the proposal. That is why you absolutely must engage in ad hominem attacks. The Republican proposal is not an attack on unions. It does not attack union members. The Republican proposal is an attack on the idea that corrupt unions which must hide their actions really represent their members.

You say that Republicans can’t be trusted because they don’t have unions’ best interests in mind. This isn’t about the health of one particularly corrupt version of human institution, this is about the lives of people. Contrary to your horrific opinion of what Republicans want, Republicans actually want a prosperous country with prosperous workers. If unions no longer represent such workers well, there is nothing inherently wrong with pointing that out. If the revelation damages the current incarnation of unions, it is only because the current incarnation of unions isn’t actually representing its workers anymore.

You are defending the status quo of union management. You aren’t defending unions that actually bother to represent their members—they have not reason to feel that revealing their actions to their members will be a threat or that it represents an attack. Strangely that conflicts with your rhetoric about worker empowerment.

I believe I addressed the issue of how these regulations are likely to be used in the second comment to the previous post. For evidence that this is likely to happen, look at the history of the NLRB - a set of institutions which were introduced to protect labour interests, and that have been turned by Republican administrations into a set of tools for hampering the ability of labour to organize workers (for statistical evidence on this, see Margaret Levi, Matthew Moe and Theresa Buckley, “The Transaction Costs of Distrust: Labor and Managament at the National Labor Relations Board,” in Russell Hardin ed., Distrust, NY: Russell Sage, 2004).

What I’m saying is that you’re trying to cover over the gaping holes in a hilariously unsustainable argument by resorting to ad-hominem claims that I have a secret agenda of forcing people to support the Democratic party. See above, passim. And, by doing this, you’re avoiding having to address the transparently ludicrous claim you advanced earlier – which is the issue addressed by this post – that Republicans have an interest in furthering the interests of trade unions as political actors. Sebastian – that’s the claim you were trying to defend – and that’s the claim that you’re now trying to wriggle away from addressing because it’s completely indefensible. Whether or not unions support the Democratic party, a powerful trade union movement is a threat to the economic interests that the Republican party represents. You can argue that workers’ interest aren’t well defended by a powerful trade union movement. You can argue that there are good normative or economic reasons why we shouldn’t want strong trade unions in the economy. You can argue that many or most Republicans are motivated by these reasons rather than by self interest (a claim that I’d be prepared to accept in part – from all accounts, Barry Goldwater was an honourable guy, and perfectly sincere in his beliefs). But the claim that Republicans have an interest in making unions more politically effective is self-evident and quite preposterous bullshit. And I’m calling you on it.

There “THEIR MEMBERS” means the members of the Republican party, not the members of the unions as such.

DSW

This is a very strange statement. Can you name a single thing a mainstream Republican leader has done in the last 10 years that helped a “union be politically effective at representing their members?” I can’t think of a party + interest group match with more hostility.

You repeat it, but your proposals do not support your assertion. The funny thing is that you are getting hung up on my alleged assertions about your motivations when I don’t give a damn about your motivations. I care about the actual effects of the things you propose

And now I see that is the whole problem. You don’t like the motivations of Republicans so you believe that is a good argument against every possible proposal from them. You think motivations trump all. I care about effects. You think when I am attacking your motivations when in fact I am attacking the effects of your proposals. The real world effect of your proposal is that union reforms would not happen. I could speculate on your purpose in acting that way, but I don’t need to. I will just point out that you claim to want reform in unions but in practical effect you wouldn’t allow for it and leave it at that.

Is that statement incorrect?

Dan asked:

Suppose that the proposals you’re objecting to had been made instead, word for word, by somebody entirely outside the Republican party—a random blogger, say, or an academic at an obscure university. Would you then consider them a good idea? If not, then why not? And if so, then what difference does it make that they happen to have been proposed by somebody whose motives you distrust?

And now I see that from your perspective Dan’s question is unfair. Motivation is everything. Real world effects are nothing. You are acting as almost a characterature of the heart-over-head liberal in this particular argument.

To reiterate, your motives are irrelevant. I will not say that somewhere deep in your heart that you don’t ‘want’ reform in unions. I will say that your suggestion to bar Republicans from proposing reforms have the practical effect of making reform exceedingly unlikely. Secondarily your focus on motives appears to me to be an attempt to attack a proposal that you could not attack on the merits. Why you would choose to do that could make for interesting speculation on motives if you were doing it with respect to Republicans, but at your request I will merely note the oddity and refrain from prying into your deeply cryptic motivational structure.

And if we are going to be over the top, having Democrats do it would be like having the KGB reform the Communist Party.

Therefore pretty much none of the major politcal actors can be trusted to reform unions.

But once again, this is a horrible argument about any particular proposal. Proposals can actually be analyzed on their merits rather than the merits of who is proposing them. You don’t like the probability that disclosure will cause union members to dislike their own unions. Republicans may well propose disclosure with that in mind. But frankly, if unions have to hide their actions from their members they don’t deserve the pretense of representing them. It isn’t as if they have national security concerns or something.

“Or have you any actual evidence of Republican leaders being interested in pushing through reforms for a cleaner, more politically effective trade union movement?”

Republicans are interested in unions that are more politically effective AT REPRESENTING THEIR MEMBERS because Democrats have created a system where unions get to squeeze money out of Republican union members for Democratic fund-raising.

That isn’t what you think of as a more effective trade union movement because you like being able to leverage people against their own preferences so long as you get to force them along the path you like.

From my point of view, that argument is pathetic, but you don’t ever have to deal with the weakness of your arguments because you engage in demonization instead of argument.