Do people know what socialism IS?

[Lisabob]

Yes and no back at you, Beavah.

 

Yes of course people do tend to take the best deal offered to them and there's no reason to think that unions (of any sort) would be the exception to that. (As a matter of fact, this is kinda the idea behind a lot of capitalist theory.) But sure, there might be times when short-term strategy is not good long-term policy. I'll grant that.

 

On the flip side, if the problem is contracts that are too rich, don't blame the unions - blame the school boards that also negotiated those contracts. Contracts are a two-way street and management must have thought the deal was ok, or they wouldn't have agreed in the first place. That's particularly true in states (like mine) where management can declare something to be their "last, best offer" before mediation, and can then impose that last, best offer if mediation fails. The real power and leverage is thus in the hands of administrators - who often do a rather poor job of negotiating for a wide variety of reasons, none of which are the fault of unions.

 

Now I don't know how things are in your part of the frozen upper midwest, but in my area, many big teacher unions (and more small ones) are looking at a period of wage freezes *and* layoffs *and* increased costs *and* declining benefits. This is not exactly "gold plated" anything, except maybe "fool's gold plated turds." Our legislature, for example, recently voted to mandate that teachers pay 20% of their insurance. OK, in principle that may be sensible. But when it is imposed legislatively rather than through contract negotiations and you end up taking an unanticipated pay cut to do it, all while being dumped on in lots of other ways, that's a problem. (actually I think it is an abuse of legislative power, but that's why I don't care much for unified government - of any stripe.) Teachers are part of our vanishing middle class, too. Or they used to be. And I think most of us agree that a vibrant middle class is a key feature in most stable capitalist democracies.

 

And as somebody who has sat across from management in teacher contract negotiations, I'm frequently amazed that management tends to REFUSE to promise to spend any money saved on things that matter in the classroom - like smaller class sizes. If they would, they might be surprised at the number of concessions they could win from teacher unions.

 

No, what management does, is to say "you have to take lower salaries and a decrease in benefits, but we reserve all rights to spend the savings however we please." And I hate to sound jaded, but "however we please" in the past has too often meant "on really nice administrative offices with all-new furniture, lots of fancy catering for special administrative lunch meetings, company cars for administrators and friends, and skyrocketing administrative salaries."

 

Can't hardly blame teachers for not wanting to give up their salaries and benefits in return for no promises from administrators to spend the saved money on actual education, given this past track record!

 

 

But this is all kind of a digression from the original topic. Sorry if I've led us down this road too far; education policy is something I find it hard to shut up about.

 

 

 

[Lisabob]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/nyregion/small-classes-unimportant-to-bloomberg-gotham.html?ref=education

 

NYT article on Mayor Bloomberg's silly ideas about class size. Note it isn't the unions or teachers trying to argue that class size is irrelevant, here.

[packsaddle]

Lisa, since it's Beavah's thread and he's the one who charged off on this topic, I think you're ok with the topic branch. Besides, it's an I&P topic which usually means more liberties being taken and resulting thread 'evolution' [not to mention the consequence of resulting thread longevity due to evolving topic].

 

Anyway, I share your feelings on this topic. Here's the link again in 'hot' form. It's worth a look:http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/nyregion/small-classes-unimportant-to-bloomberg-gotham.html?_r=1&ref=educationThere are similar ideas being promoted almost without opposition in this region as well.

 

There are essentially no unions in this region. Period. Class sizes are increasing. Teachers are quitting and being laid off. Salaries are flat (and minimal). The politics are strictly red at all government levels.

I argue that the market is working perfectly. The people are demanding poor quality through their unwillingness to pay for a better product and they are getting it. Welcome to the third world of the South. And proud of it!

[skeptic]

http://realestate.aol.com/blog/2011/12/07/tennessee-home-burns-as-firefighters-watch/?ncid=webmail3

 

Here is an extreme example of what could happen if our community governments are either politically resistant, or simply broke. Is it right; some here seem to lean that way, based on their comments about health care and indigent people.

[fred8033]

Gotta love this debate. Anyone using the term socialism in a debate is just blowing smoke and making a political argument. Both republicans and democrats. Liberals and conservatives. Socialism has no EXACT definition anymore unless you add a context source. It's a over-used worn out term.

 

One of the earliest definitions I could find is the Marx/Engels one: a step in the historical process from capitalism toward communism.

 

...

 

BUT.... There was a post I got a kick out of.

 

quote: "The thing is that liberals generally weren't the ones touting European "socialism." Perhaps, more accurately, some liberals were (and many still are) touting "social democracy," by which people typically mean that a society places more emphasis on collaborative problem solving and a strong social safety net. Social democracy tends to be more widely accepted in most - not all - European states than in the US. Then, of course, painting the varied political & economic systems of 30+ countries in an entire continent with the same brush ("European socialism!") is dangerous and prone to being wildly inaccurate. The differences between, say, the Swiss economy, the Danish economy, the French economy, the Polish economy, and the Greek economy are staggering. Same goes for their political systems. Those differences are more obvious, and more salient, these days."

 

I had to look up social democracy because I've known it for years and thought I understood it.

 

Merriam Webster: a political movement advocating a gradual and peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism by democratic means ... a democratic welfare state that incorporates both capitalist and socialist practices

 

Look up "social democracy" ... "to achieve socialism" ... "economic redistribution" ... "eliminate class disparities" ...

 

Of course, "social democracy" is very different than "democratic socialism" which is more focused on the welfare state and less on socialism.

 

Seriously folks. It all becomes mush at some point. Eventually, the whole debate is just political positioning and ridiculous.

 

....

 

I like "Jay K"s definition with one modification. I have two cows and the government makes me give one of the cows to my neighbor. But I personally know Jay and he's a good guy.

 

....

 

I can see both sides of the socialism discussion. It's not simple. I'm a huge huge Ayn Rand fan, but I think her vision is unrealistic and creates a pretty ugly world.

 

I believe in social justice, a safety net (public and private) and using government to create opportunity and to give people help up from bad situations.

 

But I cringe at growing government. I cringe at the size of contracts for most government services and yes including teachers, policeman and firefighters. Their jobs are very hard. But the contracts are huge and generous. And when a union pension program loses money, it's a government bailout. Yes, a simple analysis. It's happened locally to the scale of hundreds of millions of dollars. But wait, didn't we already pay into the pension program? Now we need to pay again for no additional work performed? And the argument in favor of the bailout is how hard and dangerous their jobs were. Wait? Wasn't that argument used to get the contract originally? And that original contract was pretty generous to begin with. Complain to your union steward, not the legislature. Or rather invest as the teacher unions did in tobacco companies. Teacher pension programs made huge profits off tobacco for decades while teaching kids its bad to smoke.

 

And when society changes, those contracts bankrupt local government.

 

As much as I love public schools, I'd love to see school districts split up if nothing else than to reduce costs and to make families value education more.

 

Of course, I want public health care too. I guess I'm one big contradiction.

 

 

(This message has been edited by fred8033)

[Beavah]

 

On the flip side, if the problem is contracts that are too rich, don't blame the unions - blame the school boards that also negotiated those contracts. Contracts are a two-way street and management must have thought the deal was ok, or they wouldn't have agreed in the first place.

 

Yah, Lisabob, but this gets back around to BDP's point, eh? School employees can and do campaign to replace the folks sittin' across the table from 'em, which can be a significant cause of "management thinking the deal is OK." Sometimes elected officials represent da special interest lobby that gives 'em money and helps 'em hold office, rather than the general taxpayer they're supposed to. Imagine that!

 

If I remember correctly, in your little corner of da upper midwest, school board elections are held at off times, and as a result have extremely low voter turnout on average, which makes it a lot easier for a mobilized special interest to succeed.

 

It ain't quite the same as for a corporation.

 

Teacher unions also have access to all of da financial information of the district, so it's not like they can claim that they didn't know what management knew about da fiscal realities.

 

But I agree with yeh on the rest. Though management is under no obligation, and as a matter of policy shouldn't bargain on things other than wages, benefits, and working conditions, they should be able to collaborate with da teachers and come to "mutual understandings" that they live up to honorably.

 

fred8033, da state exposure to unfunded and just plain corrupt state pension systems in many areas are a looming disaster that no one is willing to talk about. Makes da GM pension fiasco look like a picnic, and illustrates why government run pensions (and unregulated private pensions for that matter) are just a bad idea.

 

Beavah

 

[fred8033]

Beavah wrote: "Government run pensions (and unregulated private pensions for that matter) are just a bad idea"

 

Agreed. But for the employees (gov works, teachers, police, firefighters, ...), pensions are a good bet because a pension program is basically a government liability paid by the taxpayer. Hard to lose money unless the state declares bankruptcy, if even then.

 

It seems that a big change in our state teacher pensions is that the pension program had relatively few retired teachers from under those contracts in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s when the pension programs grew in benefits. Only in the last ten or twenty years have teachers started entering retirement in mass that are due to benefit from the better pension programs. It will be interesting how that affects state budgets.

 

...

 

I just don't understand government debt. People like divide national debt by the population to figure out the per person liability. Or divide it by tax payer. National debt ... $43k per citizen. $100k per tax return. But, that's meaningless. The bottom 36% of tax returns have zero income tax liability. The bottom 50% of tax returns only pay 2.7% of all the income taxes.

 

The debt is only meaningful when proportionate to the taxpayer. I probably did it wrong, but I should be in the ball park. Top 1% earners start at $380k. Effective tax rate of 23%. Their share of all income taxes paid is 38% giving them a per person debt liability of $4.2 million each. That's ten years of income or about 40 years of taxes on that same income. Of course their current taxes are used for servicing debt and current programs.

 

Top 5% earners have income starting at $160k and have an average tax rate of 21%. Their share of all income taxes is 58.7%. They have a national debt liability of $1.3 million each. That's eight years of total income as debt or around 40 years of taxes to pay debt (if thsoe taxes weren't already used to pay for something else).

 

I just don't understand government debt.

 

...

 

Now combine unfunded teacher pensions with current debt liabilities. What does it mean per taxpayer who's footing the bill?(This message has been edited by fred8033)

[Lisabob]

I thought about this thread yesterday, while sitting in a faculty meeting in a room full of social scientists. The economist in the room started complaining about unfair Chinese trade practices, and ended by saying "I mean, the other socialist countries in Europe are our allies; why can't China be more like them?!"

 

*headdesk*