There have been many outcomes from whats considered to be the left spectrum.
Environmentalists, animal rights activists, social activists, unions, non-governmental organizations or NGOs are just some of those outcomes.
Lets use Unions to expand this thought. Unions are epitomes of leftist thought in that they truly represent and help in real terms to address the wants and needs of the majority of people in a community/society in broader terms, their own members in narrower terms.
Union struggles have in the long term led to gains that are taken for granted by people in todays society.
Basic things such as the 8 hour workday, overtime pay, holidays, weekends off, were the result of Union struggle. On a bigger scale, pensions, social programs, medicare etc. were originally hatched in union halls and eventually implemented by various forms of governments across the world.
For long as I remember, certainly since the 80's business and their backers in governing circles, that is government and senior civil servants,have been warninng us that we need to tighten our belts, adjust our expectations, because Canadian businesses needed to compete globally.
We needed to tighten our belts to avoid deficts and then again to pay off deficits.
Meantime business was having a helluva time competing globally and wouldn't you know it, we needed to tighten our belts again.
On the other hand, Union economists warned repeatedly about the paper economy, where massive profits were being made without aiding the real economy, without capital investment in real assets.
They and their Union leaders were blown off as would be socialists and loony lefties.
What the hell did they know anyway, asked the barons of business and their cheerleaders in a servile media as paper profits soared ever higher. In return for regulatory favours that allowed them to amass ever bigger media empires and of course profits, media forfeited its objectivity and joined in the orgy of feasting at the bloated table of unregulated riches and profits.
What the barons of business called market adjustments, the Unions knew as their members, real flesh and blood people who lost a lot if not everything during the adjustments.
Unions, railed against this, demonstrated, held rallies, at every new piece of legislation. They held town-hall meetings, lobbied and demonstrated some more. They even had to go to their bargaining tables to try and restore what had been lost through legislation.
Look at today realistically.
The economic meltdown is the result of over 10-15 years of unbridled right-wing politics and policies. This is the real result of let the markets decide.
Realistically the lesson of the economic meltdown is that.....The Left Is Right!!
No comments:
Post a Comment