Strikes are in the news.
Collective Bargaining is in full flex of its power. Just this past week thousands of strikers for UAW have walked off the assembly line to march on the picket line. Writers and actors have been on strike for months now.
There are currently 962 labor actions going on in 1475 locations across the country.
The Economic Policy Institute published a very interesting article titled: What to know about this summer’s strike activity: What’s spurring the rise in labor actions?
Workers involved in major work stoppages hit the highest levels in decades before the pandemic, particularly in 2018 and 19, then subsided in 2020 and 21, but grew by 50% in 2022.
For decades prior to now, income growth was radically unequal, arguably due to the unbalanced bargaining power of the labor market.
“Perpetually rising inequality is not an inevitable feature of capitalism.”
The 1970s were a turning point. During the decades prior to the 70s there was stable and historically low inequality. The period from around the mid 1930s to the late 70s was dubbed “the Great Compression”. This period was a result of policies and institutions that boosted the leverage and bargaining power of workers in the labor market.
The most important aspect that led to and sustained the Great Compression was public support.
“Never has there been a sustained period of shared growth in any advanced economy without strong unions.”
Economic Policy Institute
The correlation between unionization and income inequality
Following the Wagner Act of 1935 there was a burst of unionization that clearly coincided with the beginning of the Great Compression. The Wagner Act was a part of the enormous defense build-up prior to World War II and this put the Federal Government on the side of workers wanting to unionize, obliging employers to bargain collectively with unions and conditioning receipt of defense contracts to respect for workers’ decisions to unionize.
It wasn’t until the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which among other things allowed states to fight efforts to unionize through so-called Right to Work laws and legalized new forms of anti-union activity, that the initial policy push began to unravel. As unionization rates peaked in the 1950s there was a clear inflection point in the late 70s when unionization dropped as the income of the top 10% rose.
According to Jaumotte and Buitron (2015) international evidence indicates that the decline in unionization since 1980 could account for roughly a third of the entire rise in the share on income claimed by the top 10% over that period.
My favorite podder, Beau of the Fifth Column, makes a great point: “Unions are for everybody.” And they help all workers whether they are a part of a union or not.
“Greed is good.”
Gordon Gekko, from the movie Wall Street
Is there a spiritual perspective about the paradigm of profit that can provide Clarity for everyday people wanting to know how to see through the confusion of politics and propaganda?
Harmony: order or congruity of parts to their whole or to one another
Is Greed a part of that equation? No.
Greed, like any other malu/life-taking energy, is like a computer virus, it simply does what it does. It infiltrates the minds of those who are unconscious enough to identify with it and then act it out.
When whole institutions are based on the premise that “greed is good” then you have a powerful monster, perfected over centuries, and fine-tuned like a well-oiled machine, march forward, through, in and over, anyone standing in its way, to achieve an unachievable goal: satisfy an insatiable endless appetite for amassing more and more wealth.
Profit Paradigm – Vicious or Conscious?
“Proft” is defined as “a ratio of monetary gain to the amount of capital invested”. A “paradigm” is a “general mental mode or framework for anything”.
A “Paradigm of Profit” then is the mental mode whose sole purpose is to create a monetary gain. This is usually baked into a company or corporation’s mission statement. That is after all, the main purpose for most, if not all, companies- to create profit for their owners, shareholders and executives.
In return for the company’s product or service we, the consumers, give them money. By economic principles, the company can charge whatever “the market will bear”, which seems like a self-correcting system.
Until it’s not.
A “self-correcting system” breaks down when the Profit Paradigm/mental mode becomes an unconscious force that grows and matures into a monstrous unstoppable force corrupted by greed.
This means using its wealth, status and power to buy, influence and corrupt to get its way to include coercing legislative action in Congress.
It does not care about people, the environment or the quality of life of future generations. The Profit/Greed Monster does not care about anything other than the vicious accumulation of wealth.
When Conscious people are in control, profit is obviously a good thing, but without a Benevolent Conscious Intent, it becomes vicious.
“Profit” in and of itself is neutral. When motivated by greed, without the guidance of Conscious people, it becomes like a fuse that has been lit, it just keeps going and going until the unsustainability culminates in an explosion of pent-up pressure released to restore Balance. The French revolution comes to mind.
People Paradigm
A ”People Paradigm” on the other hand, is about Harmony, a Conscious Intention to create a system that is in Balance with all those it affects. A win/win that works for everyone.
The Huna definition of Love: Love is a doing thing. Love is doing what is the highest and best for everyone involved.
While that may sound like a corny juxtaposition to economics, it really makes all the difference between what is sustainable and what is not, in the long run.
As we are currently seeing with the resurgence of labor actions, sustainability of a profit-oriented corporation is indeed, dependent on spiritual principles.
Greed is a life-TAKING energy based in fear and unconsciousness. As the computer virus analogy so aptly illustrates, a program just does what it is designed to do, nothing more, nothing less. It is the PEOPLE who do the designing who determine if the program they design is Life-Giving, benefits everyone, or life-taking, only benefits a few at the expense of others.
If a company’s mission statement is based in Love, what works for everyone, how will that not work for anything other than greed?
This is where spiritual principles provide the simplicity of Clarity.
The Profit Monster has been improved, refined and honed to perfection. Advertising uses psychology to lure, if not outright manipulate, its target audience for the expressed purpose of sucking every available cent into its insatiable accumulation machine.
We could say this is capitalism just doing its thing.
We could argue all day long about capitalism, socialism, communism, Marxism or any other kind of “ism”, but the thing that makes any system work, or not, is the level of unconscious malu energies that cause the system to tilt power and wealth towards some at the expense of others.
At the core of the “malu/life-taking energy” paradigm is that life itself is essentially unfair and therefore justifies any means necessary to just take, take, take.
With huge sums rolling in from the precision of the well-oiled machine, the justifications for it continuing unimpeded by things like higher pay, health care or other benefits for workers gets negated with excuses of inflation, supply-chain issues or technology advances.
Do stock buy-backs count as reinvestment? Yeah, no.
A recent meme showed the CEO/worker pay ratio in most other advanced countries ranges from 11:1 – 50:1, but in the US it’s 475:1. Greed has no shortage of excuses.
When the zero’s accumulate to astronomical levels, how does that affect perspective? At what point is enough, enough? How much does any one person or corporation need to amass?
Most importantly, how does that affect society as a whole? How does it affect you and me?
Have we been brainwashed to just take the bad with the good? Just because that’s the way it’s always been, that’s the way it will always be?
The Powerful Corporation vs The Powerless Individual
This is the myth that has been inflicted on us. “They” have all the power. We should just be happy with our wage and trinkets.
There’s nothing we can do, right?
Wrong!
Here’s the Truth: WE have the power! Us individuals COLLECTIVELY have ALL of the power.
Both as employees AND consumers.
Why? Because we individually and collectively, make decisions every day. We make decisions about where to work and what to buy.
Spend a Dollar, Cast A Vote
My Mother used to tell me growing up, “Every time you spend a dollar, you cast a vote.” It’s not unlike an election. What if everyone thought, “Why should I vote, it’s only one vote, how will that make a difference?”
If everyone thought that, NO ONE WOULD VOTE! Not the millions and millions of people who are eligible to vote with outcomes and consequences that affect all of us.
To Be Conscious or Unconscious
In today’s world, whether fortunately or unfortunately, all of the choices we make on a daily basis have far reaching consequences – from the TWO Texas sized balls of trash floating around the oceans, to the decimation of the ozone layer, WE are the ones who hold the key: the Power of Choice.
Huna Principle: The one with the Consequence is the one with the Responsibility, and the one with the Responsibility is the one with the Authority.
Do we swallow wholesale the Profit Paradigm ethos: just work the job, buy the stuff, be happy and don’t complain; or do we wake up and think for outside of that box? Individually and collectively?
“What’s Good For Everyone is Good For Everyone”
unknown
For there to be Balance and Harmony, it seems like a simple enough rule-of-thumb to follow.
A life-taking energy/spirit will scream at us that it’s all useless to even attempt to have a system that works for everyone. “There will always be winners and losers”
That may even be true, but whether it’s true or not, is it an excuse to not even try? Or worse, take advantage.
There will always be hungry people, so why bother feeding them?
There will always be homeless people, abandoned animals, victims of one sort of tragedy or another. Does that mean why bother helping any of them? Of course not!
True Power vs False Power
Believe me when I tell you this: YOU HAVE WAY MORE POWER THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE! I promise you!
What does that mean?
It means that when you make a Conscious Choice, grounded in your Authentic Self, you have the ability to change everything!
When you are Aligned and In Tune with the Infinite Intelligence that created you, you not only have limitless power, you have Guidance and Direction to know what choices to make.
When you are Aligned with that Source and Power, you have the ability to make a Shift in the seemingly unstoppable force of the Profit/Greed Paradigm.
Power grounded in Authenticity, is True Power. “Power” grounded in the fear-based life-taking energy of greed, is false power.
Read that sentence again!
Just like your vote, multiply your choice by a million. THAT is the power you have to turn the wheel towards Balance and Harmony, that which works for everyone.
Because what works for everyone, will certainly work for you too.
You may not see the effects right away, but just like wealth accumulates in the coffers of the rich, so does all of those informed little choices accumulate to create an unstoppable force for good.
False Power Bows to True Power
This is the power you have. In today’s society it is incumbent upon us to inform ourselves of what works for all of us, not just what feeds the monster.
A Conscious Choice or an unconscious reflex to manipulation?
Here’s your Conscious Choice: do you prefer that which works for everyone, or that which works for a few at the expense of others (as long as you get that thing you want)?
It’s a simple choice. But making that simple choice is what holds the key to unleashing the million X power that you have.
And what a good feeling, to Choose Balance and Harmony over vicious greed!
Use your Power by making a Conscious Choice!
“You had the power all along, my dear.” Glenda, The Good Witch
Aloha!