In the name of equanimity, here’s some good Conor Friedersdorf. When he’s good, he’s very good. And when he’s bad… ouch. Here he is, asking “Can Progressives Fix the US Postal Service?” I couldn’t tell you, myself. I don’t identify as a progressive; I think it’s a meaningless weasel word. But I do know that Conor’s post is a classic example of advocating other people’s sacrifice.
Conor is a bright guy who cares, so it’s extra depressing that he wrote a post that, as most conservative writing nowadays does, demonstrates total apathy towards the material well-being of broad classes of human beings, without owning up to that. The very idea that the well-being of millions of public sector employees matters— that, in fact, delivering a higher standard of living to broad classes of people is the very purpose of American society– goes unconsidered.
Conor says
An expensive but inflexible labor force is a significant drag on USPS, as on any organization. It is also another example of the public employee problem that threatens the future of the whole progressive project. A basic leftist goal is to persuade the American people that Ronald Reagan was wrong — that given the proper resources, government can bring about solutions and isn’t itself the problem. Various think tank fellows, Democratic strategists, and public employee unions are working to make that case. In the long run, however, strategic communication matters less than results. So long as public employees are highly paid, enjoy benefits more lavish than their private sector analogues, and work under contracts that hamstring the ability of their agencies to perform and adapt, Americans will eventually conclude that public sector investments are folly.
Let’s decode this, shall we? Because when Conor talks about expensive and inflexible labor force, what he’s talking about is that people in these jobs are well-paid and have job security. I know we’ve all been living through decades of plutocrat-adoring Republicans defining the political vocabulary, but you know, there was a time when workers expecting to be paid well and have some job security was considered a pretty elementary part of the social compact. In fact, you might say, in this capitalist system of ours, that delivering higher wages and better job security to large numbers of workers was a fundamental part of the American dream, back when such a thing existed. But Conor, as is typical of his writing and conservative commentary in general, doesn’t even bother to weigh the social value of the high standards of living for these public employees. He doesn’t seem to recognize that the fact that these people have a mechanism for a better life is a good at all, nor does he bother to wrestle with the consequences of firing and cutting the wages of thousands of people. At all. It’s as if the material conditions of these people’s lives– because, you understand, they are public employees, and are therefore Bad People– simply don’t matter to him at all.