An Organized Economy

This stuff in the news about the big three auto makers (in Detroit) asking for more bailout money bugs me. It is indicative of the ‘entitlement’ mentality that suffuses American business, and organized labor in general.

In a free market economy, the best businesses usually win. Those who can control costs, be aggressive and innovative in their strategy, be flexible to shifting markets and demands and operating costs and challenges, will be more successful than those who try to keep doing the same thing over and over.

My personal opinion is that organized labor is a large part of the problem purely because the costs of labor are not in line with the service delivered. Unions are about entitlement. "I did for you before, so you do for me now." It’s contrary to the way the business world really works, which is, "I did this before, and now I’m doing this and next I’ll do that." Success is about pay for performance, and constantly improving that performance. It takes constant improvement, not resting on past successes, to be successful in the future.

If organized labor could do an about-face and become more like guilds, they would deliver true value. If the purpose of a union was to develop and provide the best trade service to their customers, and hiring a union worker meant the customer knew she was getting a proven, qualified and skilled person, the whole thing could be different. Unions could demand the same dollars (if not more) they do now because the customer would be willing to pay for quality, not because they had successfully tied the hands that feed them. You have to make your customer want your product. It's about customer satisfaction. But unions aren't in the business of customer satisfaction. They’re in the business of making union management fat dumb and happy.

I think organized labor is the leading driver that limits our ability to compete in a world-wide marketplace. We have the laziest, highest paid workers in the world. It’s a cultural problem, however. It’s based out of a belief in individual rights at the expense of others’ rights: Me before you. It disgusts me.

How do we forget?

We have things that we really enjoy. Things that revive us, rejuvenate us, remind us why we go on day after day.

Sometimes, other things get in the way. We're distracted, diverted from the things that sustain us. We go for days, then weeks, then longer and slowly tell ourselves we'd rather not. We're too tired. It's too much trouble. There are things more important. We forget--forget what makes us happy. We substitute sustenance for joy.

When we wake up, however, and make ourselves get up and go and do the thing we know we love but have forgotten temporarily , the surge of well-being is addictive. How did we ever go this long without, we wonder.

Now, if I can just remember how to not forget.