SEARCH
 |
Jeff CrosbyBear Sterns B.S.? Jeff Crosby, president of IUE-CWA Local 201 in Lynn, Mass., has had enough of it. |
Margaret Thatcher Was Wrong
Actually this column is about a fire at my house. Bear with me, I’ll get back to Margaret Thatcher.
My house in Lynn, Mass., burned last March. Nobody was hurt, not even the cat. We’ll be fine. Most of the furniture and belongings are gone, but we had insurance.
If you’ve been through something like this, you know it’s a hassle, a million things to deal with. Insurance companies, contractors, special dry-cleaners, folks who help you save your books, folks who scrub the remaining walls, someone to re-frame your pictures, etc.
But what we will remember was the response of our friends and neighbors, especially the labor movement.
The cop who came through the door first and got my 23-year-old daughter out of the house called his wife, a school employee. She called a friend of ours (Joe Martin, an AFSCME leader and vice-president of our North Shore Labor Council) to watch the house until my wife Marjie and I got back from New Hampshire. She also called people to board up the house. The Lynn firefighters, called by another observant neighbor, saved my books just as the fire was working its way into my study.
An elderly neighbor brought us tuna fish sandwiches that day as we spread our family photos on the grass to try to dry them out. Another parked his car in our driveway so the house would look occupied while we were out. Old Man Thistle, whose family farm gave my street a name before any houses were built there, challenged anyone who approached the house with, “What is your business there?”
And thank heaven for the labor movement.
The vice president of my local, Alex Brown, organized a “Solidarity Cooking Schedule” each dinner for weeks. I had to go back to work—but I had one shirt, it smelled of smoke, I had been wearing it for two days and it was on my back. New clothes appeared on my bed at a friend’s house where I was sleeping—one of a dozen offers for temporary housing.
Union stewards at the General Electric Co. plant in Lynn where I have worked for 30 years took collections. Teachers of the AFT Boston teachers union, of which my wife is a member, did the same. One teacher brought her whole class in to give Marjie a hug. It went on and on.
Now, back to Margaret Thatcher. She led Great Britain beginning in 1979, a year before Ronald Reagan was elected in the United States. A female Reagan, only with brains. She made the famous statement, “There is no such thing as society, only individuals and their family.” She began a dark period in our history, for those of us here in the United States, as well as in Britain and much of the world.
It wasn’t just a vague kind of heroic rugged individualism Thatcher promoted. It was an entire set of economic and ideological concepts—“neoliberalism.” By ideological, I mean the way people think about themselves and the world.
Health care? Neoliberalists see the problem not that we are wasting money paying 80,000 people just to make personal visits to doctors to sell drugs for the pharmaceutical companies. They claim our health care woes are the fault of individuals: People aren’t making good choices. If we would just act as educated consumers and make rational health care choices the market would maximize efficiency and everything would be great.
Trade? Eliminate barriers to capital all over the world and may the strong survive. Sooner or later, the market will allow everyone to do what they do best and everyone’s standard of living will rise…well, in the long run.
Social Security? Privatize it, if the old folks would just make good individual choices with their investments they’ll live happily ever after.
Pensions? Just another inefficient “legacy cost.” Welcome to the lean and mean world of the 401(k)s. All investors are on their own.
Schools? Reduce education to a test score. Schools will fail if their scores are low, parents will make choices and market efficiency will create fabulous schools and Johnny and Buffy will become avid readers (or at least reliable workers).
Union folks and our friends have taken these proposals apart piece by piece. And maybe now, especially on the free trade hustle, people are starting to come around.
But the problem is Thatcher’s entire fundamental proposal. My parents got a decent start in life because of public education, the GI bill and a VA loan for a house. You know, that wimpy “society” kind of stuff that Thatcher despised.
The truth is reflected in the way the labor movement and the community responded when my house burned down. It was a combination of public services and social ties, a neighborhood and a labor movement, that brought us through. More “society.”
As I move back into my re-built house next week, I’ll be thinking of the departed English prime minister. Margaret Thatcher was wrong, dead wrong.
“Individuals and their families” can only be successful in the context of a just society.
5 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
I agree with Mr. Crosby’s article, it is clear and well stated. My own small observation is a personal philosophy that is, of course, the combination of a lifetime of living, reading and reflection.
In his article, he is clear about how wrong, Mrs. Thatcher’s philosophy was; as have been true of others who believed as she did, I would try to clarify my observations. Humanity, from its dawn began drawing together primarily for safety. It may have started with family groups but quickly moved on to small communities, clans, villages, towns, cities and nations. As I have read about these matters and thought about them, it seemed to me obvious that under the harshness of early humanities habitat they were among the weakest members of the animal kingdom.
It must soon have been obvious to them that by joining they had a better chance of chasing off the hunters who stalked them. As some hunters or anglers among them were better, it must have become clear that by sharing the food the survival of the group improved. It is certain that these experiences and observations grew and evolved along with growing food. Then making weapons, things to eat off, curing skins and finding ways to keep warm while hunting in the cold months.
It is my belief that society as we once knew it came into existence through these experiences and observations. When humanity moved to barter, they began to loose a slight bit of the immediacy and clarity about interdependence. When money came into existence, the distance and immediacy grew yet more distant and unclear. Throughout these times, there were, as today, humans who wanted more, then more than everyone else did. They wanted to make others do the work for them. They wanted power to feel more important and in time, they came to feel that the rest of humanity was less, less important, less worthy and without rights.
It is how Pharaohs, Kings, Queens and aristocrats grew so self conceited that they felt entitled to run down peasants and children without a thought. The conceit that set rulers and aristocrats to believing that other humans were less worthy of leisure, food, cloths, home or life resulted in conflicts that are with us today. We know it led repeatedly to revolutions, uprisings, murder and times of chaos. Still, it seems some never learn that when humanity forgets that we came from the same source; whether we see it as God or the basic elements of the universe, it still says we came from the same source the same family of humanity. Whenever common humanity forgets for long their common heritage, the result is disasters both individual and societal.
Jeff: I am so glad to hear that everything worked out for you, and that you are now back in your home. I can identify with the union family. I lost my husband back in December. The support I received from our union family virtually nationwide saw our family through a very trying time. See you at our State Fed CLC Advisory meeting in September. Pat Emmert, President, Palm Beach-Treasure Coast AFL-CIO
Jeff,
I have had the honor and priviledge of having your friendship and brotherhood for many years. I am proud of you, your family and Local 201. Give me a shout sometime soon.
Michael G. Betts
President, IUE-CWA Local 901
Pat and Mike-
One of the fun parts about the opportunity to write for the aflcio blog is that it puts me in touch with friends around the country–Pat from the Central Labor Council world and Mike from the IUE-GE Conference Board, which bargains with General Electric. I have been fortunate in the labor movement to get around the country some (actually more than I want to!), and the network that I mentioned in the “Margaret Thatcher Was Wrong” column includes so many like you. I’ll write in the future about the specific role of Labor Councils–as my friend Rich Rogers, Executive Director of the Boston Central Labor Council, said–”When you join our Council, you join the labor movement.” Good to be in touch with you both. –Jeff
As you know, that is a blatant misrepresentation of what Thatcher really said. She was talking about society as if it was one big thing that had a vote. But there really is no such thing as society — rather, we serve people, in all their various shapes and forms. You are right that out of diversity, a society emerges, but that is the market — not government.
In any case, the examples of government aid are well and good, but far from the point, as Thatcher knew well. The question is: would a free market have done better?
I understand that we come from very different point of views, but Thatcher’s have carried the day and we are far better off for it. Unions are part of an era left behind. This is well and good for our best days are ahead of us.
I’d be here forever responding to your points, but trade has done the world more good than anything ever else ever has or will. Due to trade, tens of millions are emerging from poverty in China now. Tens of millions are emerging from poverty due to the broadening of markets in India as well. Yes, jobs will be destroyed, and many more will be created — as has been true of America in the past 27 years. We shouldn’t be frightened of change that makes everyone better off in the long run, we should welcome it.
Thoughts?