Producers of the World…Unite!

We’re taught in school that it’s workers who make the world go ’round. Actually, it’s not just workers who make everything happen. It’s producers.

Producers are the people who take care of themselves.

A producer can make minimum wage, a billion dollars a year, or anything in between. It’s not about how much you make. It’s about how you made it.

Unions do not represent workers and they do not represent producers. Unions are not the engines of production; they’re the gatekeepers of compulsion.

Most workers don’t want to be in unions. Membership in unions has reached a historic low. Yet we’re still supposed to believe that it’s unions that speak for them.

Unions are different from businesses. Businesses make money through the voluntary consent of those who choose to purchase the product or service the business sells. If you own a restaurant, you don’t lobby a government official to make sure people eat at your restaurant. You have to convince people to come there by distinguishing yourself by offering good food. If you invent a new technology, and it turns out that millions of people are excited by that technology, then you will make millions of dollars, even if you don’t charge much for your product. This all happens voluntarily. No force is involved. No politics is involved.

Unions don’t operate this way. They rely on government force to ensure that businesses negotiate with them. They use government to compel businesses to provide them with things that they want. Unions, thanks to pro-union legislation, have morphed into glorified bullies parading as respectable politicians getting their way through compulsion and manipulation. Why don’t they use voluntary persuasion? Because they know it won’t work. They have no desire to persuade; not when the force behind politics will do.

During happier economic times, most people tolerated unions. If the standard of living was rising for everyone, it was easier to be magnanimous or simply ignorant; rationalizing that there’s nothing harmful about a little bit of union coercion in a free society.

But times have changed. People are afraid of losing everything they have, and with good reason. Last year, the Governor of Wisconsin challenged the unions in his state by daring to cut some of the state employees’ hefty benefits. He was the legally elected Governor, and it was his right to cut the budget and do what he promised to do when he ran for office. The unions didn’t like this. When previous pro-union governors increased their benefits, they considered that not only a good thing, but the governor’s right. When a different governor succeeded in cutting those benefits, an attempt was made to throw him out of office.

That’s because unions don’t like it when you go against them. When democratic votes get them what they want, they’re pro-democracy. When they lose the democratic vote, they want to reverse the vote. Unions bristle with double standards. Just like any bully.

We need a new revolution in America — not a bloody one, because no bloodshed is necessary. The producers are the ones who hold the power. They always did. Producers don’t rely on coercion to pay their way. They pay their own way. Some make millions, some don’t. But they all have one thing in common: They pay their own way, and own their own lives.

The producers are the ones who have to rise up and assert what’s theirs. “I made it. It’s mine to keep, or give away as I see fit. Not as any government sees fit.” Least of all, not the kinds of politicians (Scott Walker and a few others excepted) we know today.

Governor Scott Walker deserves a lot of credit. He stood up to the bullies and faced the music. The bullies replied by forcing an election to which no liberal Democrat would ever have been subjected.

So what’s next for the bullies in Wisconsin and Washington D.C.? If the democratic process fails them, where will they turn? At first, they’ll blame “money.” Of course, it’s not money they hate. It’s money in the hands of people who don’t agree with them. When socialist liberal celebrities and billionaires spend money, it’s fine.

Producers of the world should unite and create a revolution — not just for capitalism, but for individual rights across the board. They don’t need to blow up a single building or harm a single person. All they need to do is say NO. And mean it.

That’s Scott Walker’s lesson. Here’s to a lot more of it to come. The way is clear for a better kind of politician in the future, thanks to this victory in the historic Battle of Wisconsin.